Organization and Description of Business

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2015

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Organization and Description of Business

Organization and Description of Business

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. through its controlling interest in Digital Realty Trust, L.P. (the Operating Partnership) and the subsidiaries of the Operating Partnership (collectively, we, our, us or the Company) is engaged in the business of owning, acquiring, developing and managing technology-related real estate. The Company is focused on providing data center and colocation solutions for domestic and international tenants across a variety of industry verticals ranging from financial services, cloud and information technology services, to manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and consumer products. As of December 31, 2015, our portfolio consisted of 139 operating properties, including eight Telx properties (of which two properties are owned and six properties are leased from third parties) and 14 properties held as investments in unconsolidated joint ventures, of which 110 are located throughout North America, 23 are located in Europe, three are located in Australia and three are located in Asia.

We are diversified in major metropolitan areas where corporate data center and technology tenants are concentrated, including the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Northern Virginia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle and Silicon Valley metropolitan areas in the United States, the Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt (land only), London and Paris metropolitan areas in Europe and the Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Osaka (land only) metropolitan areas in the Asia Pacific region. The portfolio consists of Internet gateway and corporate data center properties, technology manufacturing properties and technology office properties.

The Operating Partnership was formed on July 21, 2004 in anticipation of Digital Realty Trust, Inc.’s initial public offering (IPO) on November 3, 2004 and commenced operations on that date. As of December 31, 2015, Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owns a 98.1% common interest and a 100.0% preferred interest in the Operating Partnership. As sole general partner of the Operating Partnership, Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has the full, exclusive and complete responsibility for the Operating Partnership’s day-to-day management and control. The limited partners of the Operating Partnership do not have rights to replace Digital Realty Trust, Inc. as the general partner nor do they have participating rights, although they do have certain protective rights.

On October 9, 2015, we completed the acquisition of Telx Holdings, Inc. ("Telx") from private equity firms ABRY Partners and Berkshire Partners. See Note 3 "Investments in Real Estate" for further discussion of the acquisition.