Rackspace increases second-quarter profit; no word on sale - at least not the one people are speculating about

Rackspace Hosting Inc. was involved in a sale recently, but it wasn't the private equity buyout reported to be in negotiations in recent days by Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones newswire.

Instead, Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), which reported better-than-expected second quarter earnings on Monday, agreed to sell one of its business units, known as Cloud Sites, to information technology services company Liquid Web Inc. for an undisclosed price.

Overall, the San Antonio-based company reported…