Summary

  • Arcus announced on 27 October that Volta Data Centres acquired the Reynolds House Manchester business from Lunar Digital. The carve-out excludes the Lunar Digital brand.
  • The site has about 1.45 MW of installed IT capacity and a plan to reach 2.5 MW. Arcus describes roughly 25 carriers at the site and roughly 60 customers served by Lunar.

The asset has a front door and many back doors

The most valuable part of a carrier-neutral data centre may be the part a passing pedestrian cannot see. At Reynolds House, the doors that matter lead to networks. Arcus's transaction announcement says the Manchester site hosts about 25 carriers and a London Internet Exchange point of presence. Those connections make a modest-sized building useful to customers that need to reach other networks without taking their equipment to London.

Volta has bought the operating business from Lunar Digital. The seller keeps the Lunar Digital brand. That split is a clean illustration of what changed hands: a working site and its service operation, with staff transferring, rather than a corporate name to paint above the entrance. Arcus calls this Volta's first move outside London. Its July description of Volta's London facility puts that site at 6 MW. Manchester gives the buyer a second city and a different network catchment, not a giant block of power on day one.

The two capacity numbers in the October announcement deserve different treatment. About 1.45 MW of IT load is installed today. The 2.5 MW figure is an expansion plan. The difference is 1.05 MW of proposed additional capacity, about 72% of the installed base. It is a meaningful option only after space, power, cooling, fit-out and customers line up. The release gives no commissioning date or expansion budget.

Nor does the approximate count of 60 customers disclose recurring revenue, contract expiry dates or how many accounts have formally moved to Volta. The announcement identifies a live commercial footprint; it does not price it. Purchase consideration is absent too. A buyer weighing this deal should ask for the customer and carrier contract schedule, the rights attached to each cross-connect, and the date when the extra power becomes saleable.

For Lunar, retaining the brand while disposing of the Reynolds House business leaves a separate identity to use elsewhere. For Volta, the name on the bill matters less than whether those customers can still reach the same networks after the handover. A cut cable, a disputed cross-connect or a delayed fit-out would make the transaction's elegant carve-out look rather less elegant.

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