Business description of IRON-MOUNTAIN-INC from last 10-k form

        References in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to "the Company," "we," "us" or "our" include Iron Mountain Incorporated and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.


DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

        Certain information required in Items 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K is incorporated by reference from our definitive Proxy Statement for our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the close of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010.


CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

        We have made statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K that constitute "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements concern our operations, economic performance, financial condition, goals, beliefs, future growth strategies, investment objectives, plans and current expectations. The forward-looking statements are subject to various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. When we use words such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates" or similar expressions, we are making forward-looking statements.

        Although we believe that our forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, our expected results may not be achieved, and actual results may differ materially from our expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from expectations include, among others:

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    the cost to comply with current and future laws, regulations and customer demands relating to privacy issues;

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    the impact of litigation or disputes that may arise in connection with incidents in which we fail to protect our customers' information;

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    changes in the price for our services relative to the cost of providing such services;

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    changes in customer preferences and demand for our services;

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    the cost or potential liabilities associated with real estate necessary for our business;

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    the performance of business partners upon whom we depend for technical assistance or management expertise outside the U.S.;

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    changes in the political and economic environments in the countries in which our international subsidiaries operate;

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    in the various digital businesses in which we are engaged, our ability to keep up with rapid technological changes, evolving industry expectations and changing customer requirements or competition for customers;

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    claims that our technology violates the intellectual property rights of a third party;

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    the impact of legal restrictions or limitations under stock repurchase plans on price, volume or timing of stock repurchases;

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    the impact of alternative, more attractive investments on dividends or stock repurchases;

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    our ability or inability to complete acquisitions on satisfactory terms and to integrate acquired companies efficiently; and

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    other trends in competitive or economic conditions affecting our financial condition or results of operations not presently contemplated.

ii

        Other risks may adversely impact us, as described more fully under "Item 1A. Risk Factors."

        You should not rely upon forward-looking statements except as statements of our present intentions and of our present expectations, which may or may not occur. You should read these cautionary statements as being applicable to all forward-looking statements wherever they appear. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to release publicly the result of any revision to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Readers are also urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures we have made in this document, as well as our other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Commission" or "SEC").

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 PART I

Item 1. Business.

A.    Development of Business.

        We provide information management services that help organizations around the world lower the costs, risks and inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. Our solutions enable customers to protect and better use their information—regardless of its format, location or lifecycle stage—so they can optimize their business and ensure proper recovery, compliance and discovery. We offer comprehensive records management services, data protection & recovery services and information destruction services, along with the expertise and experience to address complex information management challenges such as rising storage costs, litigation, regulatory compliance and disaster recovery. Founded in an underground facility near Hudson, New York in 1951, Iron Mountain is a trusted partner to more than 150,000 corporate clients throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. We have a diversified customer base comprised of commercial, legal, banking, healthcare, accounting, insurance, entertainment and government organizations, including more than 95% of the Fortune 1000. As of December 31, 2010, we provided services in more than 35 countries on five continents, employed over 19,000 people and operated more than 1,000 facilities.

        Now in our 60th year, we have experienced tremendous growth, particularly since successfully completing the initial public offering of our common stock in February 1996. We have grown from a business with limited product offerings and annual revenues of $104.0 million in 1995 into a global enterprise providing a broad range of information management services to customers in markets around the world with total revenues of more than $3.1 billion for the year ended December 31, 2010. On January 5, 2009, we were added to the S&P 500 Index and as of December 31, 2010 we were number 644 on the Fortune 1000.

        Our success since becoming a public company in 1996 has been driven in large part by our execution of a consistent long-term growth plan to build market leadership by extending our strategic position through service line and global expansion. This growth plan has been sequenced into three phases. The first phase involved establishing leadership and broad market access in our core businesses: records management and data protection & recovery, primarily through acquisitions. In the second phase we invested in building a successful selling organization to access new customers, converting previously unvended demand. While different parts of our business are in different stages of evolution along our three-phase strategy, as an enterprise, we have transitioned to the third phase of our growth plan, which we call the capitalization phase. In this phase, which we expect will run for a long time to come, we seek to expand our relationships with our customers to continue solving their increasingly complex information management problems. Doing this well means expanding our service offerings on a global basis while maximizing our solid core businesses. In doing this, we continue to build what we believe to be a very durable business through disciplined execution.

        Consistent with this strategy, we have transitioned from a growth strategy driven primarily by acquisitions of information management services companies to expansion driven primarily by internal growth. In 2001, internal revenue growth exceeded growth through acquisitions for the first time since we began our acquisition program in 1996. This has continued to be the case in each year since 2001 with the exception of 2004. In the absence of unusual acquisition activity, we expect to achieve more of our revenue growth internally in 2011 and beyond.

        We expect to achieve our long-term growth goals by offering our customers integrated services that address their increasingly complex information management needs regardless of the format, location or lifecycle stage of their information. By doing so we aim to help our customers reduce the costs, risks and complexities associated with managing their data while increasing their compliance with various laws, regulations, company policies and industry best practices. Consistent with our overall growth

strategy, we are focused on improving our internal revenue growth trajectory in the near-term primarily through a set of specific growth initiatives. Our go-to-market initiative is a targeted approach to improving our sales capability. By successfully executing on this initiative, we expect to increase revenues with our existing customers by selling them new services and by gaining new customers that today do not outsource some or all of their information management service needs. We are also targeting higher growth in our international businesses as we expand our platform for selling core services and new services in higher growth markets. Finally, we are continuing to expand our services portfolio in the hybrid and digital markets to capture what we see as larger, faster growing opportunities.

        At this stage in our evolution we are equally focused on driving increased profitability and cash flow through a disciplined management approach and a focus on Operational Excellence. Comprised of productivity initiatives, pricing program improvements and cost controls, our Operational Excellence strategy has produced significant and visible results. Since 2006, we have compounded annual growth rates of 12% for adjusted operating income before depreciation, amortization and goodwill impairment ("Adjusted OIBDA"), 18% for Adjusted Earnings per Share and 68% for Free Cash Flows before Acquisitions and Discretionary Investments ("FCF"). During that same period, we reduced our capex (excluding real estate) as a percent of revenues from 13.6% in 2006, to 8.1% in 2010. For more detailed definitions and reconciliations of Adjusted OIBDA, Adjusted Earnings per Share and FCF and a discussion of why we believe these measure provide relevant and useful information to our current and potential investors, see "Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Non-GAAP Measures."