Thor Geir Ramleth, named after the god of thunder and the Viking for spear, claims to be mellow rather than aggressive. Nevertheless, he has ambitious plans for DigiPlex, the internet hotel company he founded after building a similar business in the US.

Better known as Geir, Mr Ramleth helped DigiPlex defy fragile markets last autumn to raise $200m from a mixture of existing backers and banks. The money will be used to fund the company's plan to have eight internet hotels, or colocation centres, operational by the end of this year.

Colocation centres, so-called because internet servers and high-speed telecoms links are located together for fast internet access, have taken off in the US. Mr Ramleth is hoping to replicate their success in

Europe.

"Computers and telecoms have been united from the users' perspective; telecoms networks connect them to internet servers," he says. "But combining huge quantities of computing and telecoms power at the same physical site is more unusual."

However, it is not Mr Ramleth's first foray into this area. In December 1997 he sold Genuity, a US internet and colocation company he founded in 1995, to GTE for an undisclosed amount - only to see rivals such as Nasdaq-listed Exodus Communications soar subsequently in market value as colocation companies became fashionable.

GTE rolled some other businesses into Genuity, which was subsequently spun off as a separate Nasdq-listed company. But even after a sharp fall in value since last summer, Genuity is still worth $528m.

Does this rankle with Mr Ramleth? He says not. "At the time we felt we'd got a good price and made a move that would benefit the company."

"The received wisdom then was that internet companies needed to have good networking access and GTE had fibre throughout the US." But his desire to gain presence rapidly in Europe may be partly motivated by the wish to gain a bigger payback this time.

Building up DigiPlex, the Swiss-based company he founded in November 1999, has been one of his biggest challenges, not least because of the nomadic lifestyle involved. A San Francisco-based Norwegian, Mr Ramleth has spent the last 18 months dividing his time between the US and Europe.

"It hasn't been easy for my family," he says. "I told my wife and three children I'd be away for most of a year, but skills shortages in the high-tech industry have meant I have had to spend more time recruiting.

"Europeans have very long notice periods - three to six months - which is frustrating when you are trying to build a business fast."

Funding also started to become harder as market sentiment turned from the telecommunications, media and technology sector.

Mr Ramleth, who sees DigiPlex as being in the telecommunications business, says: "The market has been taking us all through big loops. Telecoms companies are having to concentrate more on their core businesses and outsource functions that are someone else's core business."

For DigiPlex, which has US-based telco Carrier1 and Iaxis NV as strategic anchor tenants, this means focusing on selling basic colocation services. It will provide additional services, such as remote monitoring of systems, only as and when customers need them.

"Some of our competitors have spent a lot of money fitting out four or five of their sites to offer higher-margin services, such as web hosting themselves," says Mr Ramleth. "But much of this space remains empty, which could be sold much faster to companies which want to do their own hosting."

"Luckily, we hadn't reached this stage of build out before the market changed, and customers became more cost-conscious," he adds.

However, as with many of its competitors, DigiPlex is planning to acquire fewer sites than in its original master plan. It will not now seek to have 20-22 sites bought or operational by the end of 2001, as it had planned a year ago.

It also expects to see consolidation in the internet hotel business this year, and Mr Ramleth says DigiPlex plans to play a part. He thinks there will be mergers between similar businesses which do not have too many sites in the same cities. Also, he believes the industry in Europe will consolidate into a few very large operators.

DigiPlex, whose main backers include Providence Equity Partners, the Carlyle Group, and Nasdaq- and Neuer Markt-listed Carrier1, owns centres in Frankfurt, Oslo, Geneva, Milan, Munich, Stockholm, Amsterdam, London and Berlin. This would make it a good fit with rival Global Switch, which also owns its own buildings and does not have a lot of overlapping sites.

One of Global Switch's leading equity investors, TrizecHahn, the Canada-based property company, recently announced it is to concentrate on its core business of US real estate and is withdrawing from other areas.

At the time of writing, DigiPlex said it was not involved in any specific merger discussions, but the company is known to have received casual approaches since it announced changes to its board in mid-February.

Mr Ramleth, originally chief executive and chairman, will concentrate on building up business from US customers who see putting servers into European internet hotels as a way of establishing a European presence quickly.

Meanwhile, Byrne Murphy, who joins from BAA McArthurGlen, the designer retail site business, becomes president, while Keith Chamberlain, formerly head of infrastructure deployment at mobile network operator Orange, becomes chief engineer. John Weston, previously a director at Switzerland-based infrastructure and solutions company Sulzer, is vice president of operations.

"The company will benefit from Mr Murphy's experience of building and managing retail spaces for customers as diverse as Ralph Lauren and Christian Dior, and of moving them up the value chain in terms of services offered," he says. It is hoping to differentiate itself from rivals by listening very closely to what customers want and tailoring services accordingly.

Mr Ramleth, who is on the boards of Geirheads -a private investment and advisory company he founded - and of start-ups Inverge.com, Data Return and UWI.com, also feels it is important to listen to employees. He likes, for example, to relax with staff over a few beers in the evening. But he says being available becomes more difficult when companies are moving from adolescence to maturity. "There is a stage in the growth of every young business where staff see less of the founding managers and where they suffer from 'scope shrinkage'," he says.

"They feel less appreciated - and where once they were responsible for everything from marketing to stationery, they now have just one main area of responsibility. It is tough to make people feel wanted at such times and to ensure they end up doing what they're best at."

Mr Ramleth has been involved in this kind of transition several times, especially at Genuity which grew from zero to 200 staff in its first year of operation. Is he good at it? "At the time, you never really know if you are getting it right because there is a time lag between making the changes and seeing the results - but I think I am approachable if people want to air grievances."

Mr Ramleth does not have much spare time when he is not working or on a plane, but he likes to attend concerts by Elton John - and he loves go-kart racing.

In California, he drives go-karts that can go from 0-60mph as quickly as a Ferrari. He is also a former speedboat world record holder (for small outboard powerboats), showing that he may be a little less mellow than he thinks.