Data Center Investment News — 12/08/2022
Principal Real Estate Investors partners up for US data centre acquisition
Principal Global Investors’ real estate investment business arm Principal Real Estate Investors has teamed up with Lincoln Rackhouse, the data centre division of Lincoln Property Company, to acquire a data centre asset in Atlanta, US.
The 185,000 square-foot facility sits on a 38-acre parcel with more than 7MW of capacity, and a design to expand to over 13MW. The site has also capacity to support a separate 30MW ground-up data centre development.
The parties added that St. Louis-based Ascent will continue to provide facilities management, engineering and construction services to the site. Marketing and leasing with be provided by Digital Crossroad and CBRE’s Atlanta-based data centre solutions team.
According to Datacenter Hawk, Atlanta’s data centre market continues to grow due to the favourable business climate, competitive colocation and cloud environments, reasonable power cost, low natural disaster risk and robust connectivity.
Irish $460m data centre wins approval under new gov’t policy
Ireland’s Clare County Council has granted planning permission for the Art Data Centre campus in Ennis in a boost to the national hosting industry.
The facility is expected to attract a capital expenditure of €450 million (US$460 million) and generate up to 1,200 jobs including construction and supporting services as well as 400-450 permanent positions once fully completed.
It will include six data halls supporting a combined IT power capacity of 198MW. The site will be built in phases within the standard data centre development timelines. Construction is due to take seven years to complete by 2030.
This is Ireland’s first data centre to be approved since the introduction of new guidelines introduced by Dublin last month. The key components of the new framework is the necessity for new projects to show a clear balance between economic benefits sustainability and emissions targets.
Compass Datacenters to launch first European hub with real estate giant Hines
Compass Datacenters and global real estate firm Hines have acquired land in the Milan metro area with the intention to build a largescale data centre campuses.
The 2.3 million square foot Noviglio-located site in the northern Italy city aims to support 48MW+ of IT load with construction to begin in 2023. The joint venture marks the entry of Compass Datacenters into the European market for the first time, and is anticipated to be the first data centre project to be delivered by Hines in Europe.
AJ Byers, President and Chief Development Officer at Compass Datacenters, said: “Building our first European campus in Milan is a major step in Compass’ global expansion strategy. It’s geographic location, undersea cable connectivity, robust fiber availability and affordable power makes it an ideal location for hyperscalers.
“Hines’ vision for Italy align with our own, and our combined resources should accelerate the timeline for customer availability.”
Digital Realty sells off “mature” data center for $205m, likely in Dallas
Digital Realty has sold a “mature” data center to release the capital for new projects – without saying which building it sold, or to who it was sold.
The company release tells us that Digital has sold the property, which contains 370,000 sq ft (34,400 sq m) facility and other tenants, for $205 million. The company will use to pay down debt, and invest in new property and acquisitions. The property is expected to generate a net income of $10.7 million a year for the new owner.
The deal is expected to complete by the end of September.
Selling off older property to invest in newer facilities is a move which Digital Realty makes regularly. Typically, it sells “powered shell” buildings that have one tenant, and provide a steady, if unexciting income, to investors who want a stable return. In 2019, for instance, it sold ten data centers to Singapore investor Mapletree for $1.4 billion.
Segro proposes new data center park in Iver, east of Slough
Data center shell provider Segro has applied for permission to begin a new data center park, east of its main focus the Slough Trading Estate.
Segro has applied to build a 65,000 sqm (700,000 sq ft) data center within the Thorney Business Park, in Iver, a village about six miles east of the major data center hub of Slough. Alongside the building (DC1), the proposal includes drawings for two more facilities (DC2 and DC3).
Another Iver project emerged in April, when Amazon bought a logistics estate, the Ridgeway Distribution Centre, virtually adjacent to Thorney Business Park.
“Segro is seeking to redevelop part of the Thorney Business Park to deliver a data center complex that responds to the technical constraints and opportunities including landscape considerations balanced with securing an appropriate quantum, height, scale and layout to meet the needs of the data centre operators,” says the planning statement [PDF].
Colt planning 50MW West London campus on site for former Sentrum/Optimum data center
Colt is planning a new data center in Hayes, West London, that would more than triple its existing footprint in the UK capital.
The Fidelity Investments-owned company is looking to develop the former Optimum Data Centre on the Springfield Road Industrial Area, as well as neighboring Tudor Works and Veetec Motor Group facilities, into a new data center campus. Press reports the company was granted permission for the project in April of this year.
Late last year Colt filed and was granted permission to demolish the Trinity/Optimum Data Centre and neighboring Tudor Works on Beaconsfield Road, Hayes, in order to ‘deliver a new purpose-built 50MW 2.1-hectare data center campus’ known as “London 4.”
A subsequent filing from earlier this year showed the company aims to build “two data center buildings; associated energy and electricity infrastructure, buildings, and plant” totaling 38,355 sqm (412,850 sq ft). Plans will feature 48 air cooling units and 32 backup generators.
Macquarie-backed Prime Data Centers assigns $300m for first European real estate deployment
US hosting firm Prime Data Centers is to open a facility in Madrid in what will be the company’s first in Europe and in line with a growing trend of North American operators debuting in the continent.
The campus in the Spanish capital is expected to cater to a capital expenditure of between €200 and €300 million or US$204.47 and US$306.7 million, according to Spanish newspaper CincoDías. The location and IT MW capacity are yet to be confirmed by the operator.
Prime Data Centers will also develop a second European facility in Munich, Germany, however, details are scarce at this stage. Michael Wall, the company’s head of development and construction in Europe, said: “Prime Data Centers is actively pursuing numerous EU markets and in the coming months we will announce our first EU facility in Madrid.
“Once the investment is committed, Prime Data Centers will likely invest between 200 and 300 million [Euros] during the construction phase and then an ongoing annual commitment during the operational phase.
Triple Point’s Digital 9 scoops an extra $90m to finance digital infrastructure acquisitions
Triple Point Investment Management LLP’s Digital 9 Infrastructure plc (LSE: DGI9) has signed its first increase under the terms of its existing Revolving Credit Facility (RCF). The increase of £75 million (US$90.86 million), brings the total aggregate capital commitments provided by the bank syndicate to £375 million (US$454.31 million).
The group said it may request further increases, subject to lenders’ approval and subject to the company’s Borrowing Policy, of up to an additional £125 million (US$151.44 million). The triggering of the accordion facility has no impact on the terms of the RCF, which remain unchanged, the group clarified.
The RCF increase will provide the group with additional committed capital, to help finance the acquisition of further investments from its near‐term pipeline and to fund growth capital expenditure for its existing investee companies.
The Investment Manager remains focused on converting its pipeline of over £2 billion (US$2.42 billion) of potential assets.
PAG’s Flow to acquire Australia’s DXN
Australian data center firm DXN has sold to Flow, the new data center investment platform from investment manager PAG Real Estate.
ASX-listed DXN currently operates three data centers; the 4,351 sqm (46,800 sq ft), 5.5MW DXN-SYD01 in Sydney, a second facility in Hobart, Tasmania, and a 350 sqm (3,700 sq ft) bunker with two data halls in Darwin. The company has also delivered more than 18 modular data centers to customers including Boeing and Covalent Lithium.
In an ASX update this week, DXN said its directors have unanimously voted that all its business assets and subsidiaries were to be sold to Flow2Edge Australia for approximately AU$26 million ($18m) in cash. The deal included shares in subsidiaries TAS01 (which holds DXN’s Tasmania facility) and Secure Data Centre (which holds DXN’s facility in Darwin) and all units in the SDC Unit Trust.
A further update suggests DXN will be wound up after the sale; DCD understands Flow2Edge will be the local entity under Flow Digital Infrastructure.
PAG said the deal will be funded via resources from PAG-managed funds. DXN said it plans to raise AU$2.125 million (US$1.5m) through the issuing of shares to fund its working capital until the completion of the deal.