Data Center Investment News — 30/09/2022
Australian digital infrastructure players buy up market share
Australian fibre and data centre companies iseek and Superloop have carried out real estate acquisitions to expand their market share. Firstly, Amber Infrastructure Group-backed iseek has reportedly bought data centre operator YourDC.
According to AFR, the business was acquired by Amber through iseek in a transaction thought to have catered to AU$50-100 million (US$32-64 million).
YourDC’s portfolio comprises two data centres in Adelaide connected by a dedicated fibre ring which will join iseek’s four other national buildings. Combined, the YourDC facilities include 30,800 square feet of IT space and capacity for up to 1,020 racks. None of the parties involved has at the time of writing commented on the deal.
Elsewhere, Superloop Limited (ASX: SLC) has entered into a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) to acquire VostroNet Holdings Pty Ltd (VostroNet), a provider of wholesale Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) access networks and purpose-built student accommodation broadband.
Laura Ortman selected as Chief Executive Officer of Cologix
Cologix has appointed Laura Ortman as its new CEO, replacing Bill Fathers.
The company announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Laura Ortman as its Chief Executive Officer, effective October 12, 2022. Laura currently holds the position of President and Chief Revenue Officer at Cologix.
Prior to joining the company in 2018, Ortman previously held executive leadership positions at Equinix as Chief Customer Officer and VMware, leaving as VP & GM of Cloud Services & Executive Global Services. She is also a board member of Stonepeak’s Asian data center firm Digital Edge DC.
“I am excited to lead this exceptional and high-performing organization through its next chapter of growth,” said Ortman. “It is an honor to lead and work alongside the amazing team at Cologix. I look forward to building on the strong foundation and positive growth we have established over the past few years. I want to thank Bill for his vision, leadership, partnership and collaboration over the years.”=
Crestline Investors equity backs Evocative’s INAP data centre M&A
Internet infrastructure company Evocative has closed on the acquisition of the majority of INAP’s data centres, including colocation and related network services. The acquisition nets nine data centres and increases Evocative’s employee count by 30 percent.
The asset acquisition of INAP’s data centres adds three additional markets in Boston, Atlanta and Seattle to Evocative’s existing data centre portfolio in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
The acquisition brings Evocative’s data centre presence to 20 data centres in the United States, 1,080,000 square feet of data centre space, 108 MW of available power with an additional 25 percent expansion capability, and 2,000+ carrier, content and enterprise clients.
Arman Khalili, Founder & CEO of Evocative, said: “Our team has built a leading infrastructure organization that has reached a new milestone with 20 carrier-neutral facilities to support our new and existing customers’ businesses.
Quantum Loophole signs four customers, 240MW of capacity for Maryland campus
Quantum Loophole, the company creating a 1GW data center campus in Maryland, has said it has secured four customers so far, totaling almost 250MW of capacity.
Led by former Terremark and CyrusOne executive Josh Snowhorn, Quantum Loophole is developing a 2,100-acre data center campus in Maryland. With aims to create a 1GW campus, Quantum Loophole has previously said it expects to deploy individual data center modules of 30-120MW capacity in less than nine months. The site is due live in 2024.
“As of today, we have signed contracts with four different entities representing more than 240MW of phase 1 power on our Frederick campus,” Snowhorn said this week.
In May 2022, Aligned Data Centers became the first company to publicly announce plans to develop a data center at the Quantum Loophole campus. Terms of the deal or size of the project were not disclosed.
Warburg Pincus to finance Southeast Asia data centre roll out with $2.8bn fund
KKR’s asset manager Warburg Pincus (WP) has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Singapore-based Evolution Data Centres (EDC) for the development of sustainable hyperscale data centres in Southeast Asia.
As part of the venture, WP will be committing capital from its maiden asset-level Asia real estate Fund, which closed with committed capital of US$2.8 billion in late 2021.
EDC was founded by a team of executives with over 25 years of experience in the Asian Data Centre market and an extensive track record, having deployed more than 640MW of capacity and led more than US$1bn of digital infrastructure transactions in the region.
Evolution was established to address two key challenges: the lack of quality and scale of data centre capacity in emerging Asian markets, and the critical need for sustainable infrastructure in the region.
DC Blox hires EdgeConnex’s Melih Ileri as SVP of capital markets and strategy
DC Blox announced today that it has hired Melih Ileri as senior vice president of capital markets and strategy.
The south-eastern US multi-tenant data center, dark fiber, and connectivity solutions provider created the position with the hope of fueling the company’s growth.
Ileri will be in charge of securing new debt and equity investments, as well as driving financial strategies and partnerships.
“I’ve been impressed with the team at DC Blox for creating a tremendous platform for growth with owned assets, land for expansion, and a community-first approach,” said Ileri. “With an increasing market of hyperscale, cloud providers, and large-scale enterprises in the region, I am very excited for the exponential growth opportunity that lies ahead of us.”
American Tower’s $10bn data centre arm expands in South-eastern USA
CoreSite, a subsidiary of American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT), has expanded its presence in the Miami market with the acquisition of a 103,000-square-foot data centre (MI2) in Doral, Florida.
The former REIT also owns and operates a 43,000-square-foot data centre (MI1) in downtown Miami.
The MI2 Miami data centre is a freestanding facility in America’s Gateway Park built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane with a 185-mph-gust-rated roof. As part of the integration process, CoreSite will be connecting MI2 to the company’s MI1 data centre.
Juan Font, President and CEO of CoreSite and SVP of American Tower, said: “Miami serves as a key conduit for businesses to manage and grow operations in both North and South America. This expansion in the CoreSite Miami data center campus will provide the hybrid IT solution enterprises turn to for secure and scalable connectivity to South America from the U.S.
Alphabet’s Google Cloud to announce Greece hyperscale data centre
Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud is reportedly set to unveil plans to build a hyperscale data centre in Greece, following up to rivals AWS and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) US$1 billion project in the Attica region.
According to local media, the announcement by Google will be made on Thursday, September 29, by Adaire Fox-Martin, president of Google Cloud International, and Peggy Antonakou, president of South-eastern Europe of Google.
Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and the Minister of Digital Governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis are also set to be in attendance. No more information on the facility of the investment are known at this stage.
The project is set to be Google’s first data centre in Southern Europe and the closes to the African continent as well as the Middle East.
Russian big tech group eyes 63MW data centre
Russian internet company Yandex (MCX: YNDX) is on the verge of breaking ground on a hyperscale campus located in Kaluga, in the western part of the country.
The facility, to be erected in at the Grabtsevo Industrial Park, has been designed to service 63MW of IT load. The 1.4 million square feet building will support more than 3,800 servers.
The capacity is the highest across Yandex’s portfolio of four facilities based in Russia in Vladimir, Sasovo, Ivanteevka, and Mytishchi, and one 40MW site in Mäntsälä, in Finland.
The data centre is projected to have a PUE of between 1.07 and 1.09, and is scheduled to be brought online during the first half of 2023. Yandex said it will fit the facility with its own equipment.
DigitalBridge’s DataBank opens Utah data centre for business
DigitalBridge (NSE: DGBR) edge data centre operator DataBank has brought online the previously announced Salt Lake City facility, SLC6. The investment has been forced by growing demand for IT infrastructure in Utah and the Salt Lake City market.
The 171,000 square foot expansion adds 100,000 square feet of raised flooring – 50,000 of which will be available on day one. The project establishes two new data halls, expected to open in October of this year.
Some 11 megawatts of power are available now, with another 11 megawatts to come online in the future, the company said. A grand opening event is slated for November 15.
Tony Qorri, DataBank’s vice president of construction, said: “Utah is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing tech hubs in the U.S.
Sweden’s Hexatronic Group expands data centre monopoly with UK acquisition
Stockholm-based Hexatronic Group AB (STO: HTRO) has signed an agreement to acquire 90% of the shares in Impact Data Solutions Limited (IDS). The acquisition will be completed on October 3, 2022.
The sellers are Sterlite Global Venture Limited based in Mauritius, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sterlite Technologies Limited, selling 80% of the shares in IDS and the original founders of IDS, selling 10% of the shares in IDS.
The remaining 10% of the shares in IDS are held by Benjamin Parker, CEO of IDS Group. Hexatronic has an option to acquire the remaining 10% of the shares over the period 2026-2029. The group said the acquisition will be financed with available cash.
Henrik Larsson Lyon, CEO of Hexatronic Group, said: “We are very pleased to welcome IDS to Hexatronic Group. IDS has a proven track record of working with the most demanding data centre customers and will play a key role in growing Hexatronic’s data centre business.”
Blue-chip institutional investors back new LATAM data centre operator
Blue-chip institutional investors Global Compute Infrastructure, LP (Global Compute) and Southern Cross Group (SCG) have invested in Data Horizon Americas (DHA; DHAmericas) to finance the company’s expansion across Latin America.
DHA is currently investing in the expansion of its data centre platform in the region through organic, data centre campus development as well as acquisitions of existing facilities and platforms.
As the group secured the private equity sponsorship in Latin America it has also announced its first campus launch, located in the Bogota Metropolitan Region, Colombia.
The hyperscale-focused campus site sits within Zona Franca Occidente (ZFO), a fully secured economic free zone, and covers over 50,000 m2 (12.4 acres) – more than double the size of any other contiguous plot within the same park that could be suitable for data centre development, it said.