Like a phoenix rising from the smouldering ruins of its data centre, OVH sets sights on IPO

OVH Groupe SAS is edging closer to a potential initial public offering (IPO) expected to value the European hosting and cloud biz at around $4.7bn – months after a fire engulfed part of its data centre real estate. The privately owned company, which trades as OVH Cloud, today issued a letter and series of documents confirming …

[Anonymous Coward]

sell shares

"As part of the move, existing shareholders that have "supported the business" since 2016 – namely private equity investors KKR and Towerbrook, which own 10 per cent of the shareholding each – intend to sell some of the stock."

Can't really blame them. I'd do the same, if I had any !

Sorry for the poor sods who have lost data (I know some). And also for the gullible who are gonna put their money in this, only to loose half of it when the proverbial stuff hit the fan again !

[Anonymous Coward]

OVH

I had the misfortune of working for OVH following an acquisition around the time KKR and Towerbrook invested in OVH. The leadership kept explaining how we would have a lucrative and "life-changing" equity package coming our way, but I could never get them to explain how "life-changing" money would come from a $5B valuation when the Klabas would keep at least half while TB and KKR owned 20%, If the 2000+ employees split the remaining 30%, that doesn't leave much to sell in an IPO, nor does that make for a compelling value for investors of a significantly cloistered stock.

As it turned out, the rank and file didn't get anything at all. (Could be wrong, but my friends in OVH France said they didn't)

[Imhotep]

I've Got Gambling Money

Oh, dear. This does sound familiar. A company with expertise in a particular area wants money to diversify in to other fields and for mergers and acquisitions. If I was a stock holder, I'd cash in when the IPO goes public.

[Uncle Ron]

From the article: "Some clients lost data due to the incident and OVH has put in place measures to prevent a similar mishap from taking place, including a lab to model the impact of fires on data centres."

I wouldn't invest a shilling in a service that "lost data" due to a fire. What kind of cloud service doesn't have near bullet-proof disaster recovery procedures in place? That would seem to to me to be the very first thing on the check-list. Huh?

[tfewster]

Cloud != Colo (customer owned systems merely co-located in a shared DC environment)

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>What kind of cloud service doesn't have near bullet-proof disaster recovery procedures in place?

One whose business model is low cost hosting for sites that don't need and don't want to pay for 5-nines up time.