Eastside Business -- Data Base Being Sold For $115 Million

Bellevue's Data Base, the nation's largest privately owned data-storage company, will be sold to publicly held Iron Mountain for about $115 million.

Data Base is solely owned by John and Donna Luger, who founded the company in a Tukwila warehouse in 1976. The company now employs 325 workers who house corporate computer records at 12 sites around the nation.

Iron Mountain will pay $69 million in cash and assumed debt plus 1.47 million shares of stock. Iron Mountain stock has been trading recently around $31. The deal is expected to close within 45 days, pending approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

There will be no layoffs at Data Base beyond the departure of President and Chief Executive John Luger and the company's human-resources director, Luger said.

Boston-based Iron Mountain, which reported $230 million in sales last year, is the world's largest records-management company. Its acquisition of Data Base will give it access to eight new markets, including Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Columbus, Ohio; and Richmond, Va.

Iron Mountain's Eastside operation is expected to be merged into a larger Data Base facility south of Seattle.

Data Base will become part of Iron Mountain's Arcus Data Security unit.

Headquartered in a small office building on Main Street on the edge of downtown Bellevue, Data Base had revenue of about $14.5 million during the last half of 1998.

Iron Mountain Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Reese said Data Base will provide "an outstanding staff and state-of-the-art technology."

Luger said he decided to sell because Data Base was a "tweener company" that was large enough to go public but not large enough, with its slow, steady growth rate, to keep the attention of Wall Street.

After leaving the company, he said, he plans to devote more time to philanthropic pursuits. His top priority will be helping Eastside Catholic High School find a permanent home. The school now leases a former middle school building from the Bellevue School District.