Host Europe Group, the largest privately owned hosting group in Europe, which incorporates 123-reg, Host Europe and Webfusion, has today announced that it has acquired Nottingham-based web hosting company Heart Internet, which will result in Host Europe Group becoming the UK's largest provider of sophisticated reseller hosting products, utilising cloud technology and offering a wide product portfolio that is capable of meeting the needs of everyone from novices to high end users with enterprise standard infrastructure requirements. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

Heart Internet will now join Host Europe's portfolio of businesses and together the combined infrastructure of the UK operation will reach a customer base of approaching one million.  This is great news for customers who will now benefit from both companies' expertise and brand strength - with Heart Internet being the preferred reseller choice in the UK. Through combining and integrating the complementary product ranges and infrastructure, the group extends its capabilities and footprint into an attractive and differentiated niche segment of the hosting market whilst allowing Heart Internet to benefit from Host's Cloud platform and suite of fast growing virtualisation services.

Heart was founded by Jonathan Brealey and Tim Beresford, who also established 123-reg and Webfusion, both of which were acquired by Host Europe in 2003. Jonathan and Tim will remain within the business, not only to cement the partnership but also to realise the vision of the shared product set that is made available to the combined customer base. The Heart Internet team will continue to operate from its Nottingham base, whilst benefiting from access to Webfusion's state of the art data centre.

Thomas Vollrath, CEO of the Host Europe Group, said:

"This is a great opportunity for both businesses and our customers, who will benefit from a full suite of complementary product ranges from a one stop shop that will cater for all their hosting requirements. We have jointly developed a product integration plan for all customers, ranging from domains, value added-services, shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS and dedicated servers to customised and managed hosting solutions which will deliver additional growth for the new combined Group. Heart has won numerous awards for its reseller programme, so combining its expertise with our infrastructure will result in a new centre of excellence within the industry, for both customers and resellers alike."

Jonathan Brealey founder of Heart Internet, added:

"I am delighted that Heart is joining the Host Europe Group. This deal effectively brings together the preferred reseller brand in the UK with the leading virtualisation player, to create a hugely complementary offering.  This is certainly an exciting chapter in the history of Heart Internet, which remains fully committed to both the team in Nottingham and maintaining the highest level of customer service - and will allow Host Europe Group to claim the title of the UK's largest reseller hosting provider. As both companies are Deloitte FastTrack businesses, independently recognised for growth potential, we are uniquely placed to capitalise on this superb market opportunity and create a brand that is greater than the sum of our collective parts."

Press Release