Data Center Investment News — 15/07/2022
Gaw Capital names Macquarie’s India expert to capture national attractive investment opportunities
Real estate private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners has announced the appointment of Nitin Gupta as Managing Director and Head of India at Gaw Capital Partners. He will be based in Mumbai, India.
Gupta will spearhead Gaw Capital Partners’ foray into India market, building a professional team on the ground to capture attractive investment opportunities across real estate spectrum.
His leadership, market relationships and transaction structuring experience for over nearly three decades in India will be invaluable for building a scalable and successful business in India for Gaw Capital Partners, the company said in a statement.
Prior to joining Gaw Capital Partners, Gupta worked as Managing Director and Head of India – Real Estate with Macquarie Asset Management business.
Digital 9 Infrastructure plc raises fresh capital for further asset investment
The board of Digital 9 Infrastructure plc (LSE: DGI9) has announced that it has raised £60 million via the placing and offer for subscription of new ordinary shares in the capital of the Company (the “New Ordinary Shares”) (the “Placing” and the “Offer for Subscription”, together the “Issue”).
48,335,287 New Ordinary Shares will be issued pursuant to the Placing and 6,210,167 New Ordinary Shares will be issued pursuant to the Offer for Subscription (noting that the Offer for Subscription was significantly over-subscribed and an appropriate scaling back exercise has been undertaken) at a price of 110.0p per share (the “Strike Price”).
Phil Jordan, the company’s Chair, participated in the Offer for Subscription and has been allocated 27,272 New Ordinary Shares.
QTS purchases site in Phoenix for $255m, land in the Netherlands for $9m
Data center real estate investment trust QTS Realty Trust has acquired nearly 400 acres in Phoenix, Arizona, for $255 million.
The company also paid around €9m ($9m) for land in the Netherlands, near its existing facilities in the Groningen province.
In the US, QTS paid around $653,409 per acre to buy the land and property from Chicago-based First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. and Phoenix-based Merit Partners Inc. on July 5, according to real estate database Vizzda, and first reported by the Phoenix Business Journal.
The existing property is set west of the Loop 303 between Bethany Home and Camelback roads adjacent to the planned 250-acre Allen Ranches residential project.
Quinbrook shares details of $2.5bn mega data centre campus
Investment manager Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners has launched what it claims to be one of the largest permit-approved data storage campus projects in the Southern Hemisphere.
Quinbrook’s ‘Supernode’ project will also host one of the largest battery storage installations in the Australian National Electricity Market.
The project site is located adjacent to the South Pine substation at Brendale which is the central node of the Queensland Electricity Network and offers unparalleled power supply access and redundancy with three separate high voltage transmission connections supporting ‘mission critical’ data centre operations targeting Net Zero emissions.
Supernode is an internationally digital infrastructure project combining both critical energy and data storage capacity to be powered by Queensland sited renewable power projects.
Stonepeak to acquire $2.5bn stake in American Tower’s CoreSite business
Investment firm Stonepeak is to acquire a large stake in American Tower’s CoreSite data center business.
The two companies announced this week that Stonepeak, on behalf of certain affiliated investment vehicles, will acquire an ownership interest of approximately 29 percent in American Tower’s US data center business for $2.5 billion.
The partnership will be realized through an investment in common equity and mandatorily convertible preferred equity in a deal that implies an enterprise value of approximately $10.5 billion for the business, which comprises 27 facilities in 10 US markets.
American Tower first announced the equity sale in an SEC filing in early June but didn’t reveal the name of the company making the investment.
Merlin breaks ground on Bilbao data center
Iberian real estate company Merlin Properties is to break ground on its first data center just outside of Bilbao, Spain.Cinco Dias reports Merlin is laying the first stone of the data center, called Arasur, near Vitoria this week.
First announced last year, Merlin is developing four facilities on land belonging to the firm in Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona, and Lisbon in partnership with green energy startup Edged Energy.
The company plans to invest almost €600 million ($606m) to develop 70MW in two phases, although it could reach up to 240MW in the future. The first 3MW module in Vitoria is set to launch next year. At full build-out, the site could reach 100MW across 17,600 square meters (189,400 sq ft).
AustralianSuper and EQT both interested in buying Global Switch – report
AustralianSuper and EQT have reportedly joined the race to acquire data center operator Global Switch.
Founded in 1998, London-based Global Switch operates 13 facilities across Europe, Australia, and Asia. Chinese steel giant Jiangsu Shagang Group took control of the data center company over a three-year period beginning in 2016.
The Daily Mail reports that Australian pension fund AustralianSuper and investment firm EQT Partners are both ‘interested and eyeing’ the company as Shagang looks to sell its stake.
Global Switch has been flirting with a sale for over a year, talking to potential acquirers back in January 2021 for an $11 billion sale. By November, Blackstone, KKR, Brookfield Asset Management, DigitalBridge Group, Digital Realty, and Equinix had lined up as potential acquirers.
American Real Estate Partners closes third real estate fund
American Real Estate Partners (AREP) has closed its third real estate General Partner fund worth $63 million in equity commitments.
Called the AREP Strategic Opportunity Fund III, the investment will follow suit with its predecessors and be used to further the company’s data center, residential, industrial, and office assets on the East Coast of the US. According to the press release, a focus will be placed on ‘value-add’ properties: older or unused buildings that can be upgraded.
The Fund III dollars should be invested in 12 to 24 months, but AREP is not currently providing specific timetables.
Raised from a mix of public and private institutional investors and family offices, the latest fund’s capital will be used to invest in $1.5bn to $2bn worth of total asset value utilizing ‘moderate financial leverage’.
StratCap acquires data center in Jacksonville, Florida
Investment firm StratCap has acquired a data center in Jacksonville, Florida.
The company announced this week that its data center real estate division, StratCap Data Centers, had completed the acquisition of a triple net leased data center. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The 25,600 square foot (2,400 sqm) facility is fully leased to a ‘major telecommunications carrier’ and serves as one of the company’s wireless communications switching centers and includes a cell tower. The existing lease for the property commenced in 2002, and it was recently extended to 2038.
“This was an off-market, relationship-driven opportunity to invest in a mission critical asset with a high-quality tenant and nearly 16 years of lease term remaining,” stated Bryan Marsh, CEO of StratCap Data Centers. “We think the property is a perfect fit for our overall investment strategy and adds significant value to our overall portfolio.”