Blackstone Actual Property Companions, Blackstone Infrastructure Companions, Blackstone Tactical Alternatives, and Blackstone’s personal fairness technique for particular person traders, together with the Canada Pension Plan Funding Board (CPP Investments), have agreed to amass AirTrunk, an Asia Pacific (Apac) information heart agency, in a deal value round A$24 billion ($16 billion).
The quantity contains debt and capital expenditure for dedicated tasks.
The sellers are Macquarie Asset Administration (MAM), Canada’s Public Sector Pension Funding Board (PSP Investments) and different traders. MAM purchased a 88% stake in AirTrunk in April 2020 for a valuation of round A$3 billion.
Whereas a spokesperson for Blackstone informed FinanceAsia it’s not offering a breakdown of the fairness percentages, CPP Investments mentioned in an organization assertion that it could be buying 12% of AirTrunk. CPP Investments mentioned it has information centre joint ventures and investments in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, along with the US.
The deal, if accomplished, can be Blackstone’s largest funding in Apac. The transaction is topic to approval from the Australian Overseas Funding Evaluate Board.
AirTrunk is the most important information heart platform in Apac, with a presence throughout Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It has greater than 800 megawatts (MW) of capability dedicated to clients and owns land that may help over 1GW of future progress throughout the area, in response to a press release from Blackstone.
Jon Grey, president and chief working officer of Blackstone, mentioned: “That is Blackstone at its greatest – leveraging our international platform to capitalise on our highest conviction theme. AirTrunk is one other important step as Blackstone seeks to be the main digital infrastructure investor on this planet throughout the ecosystem, together with information facilities, energy and associated providers.”
Sean Klimczak, international head of Blackstone Infrastructure and Nadeem Meghji, international co-head of Blackstone Actual Property, mentioned: “Digital infrastructure is experiencing unprecedented demand pushed by the AI revolution in addition to the broader digitisation of the economic system.”
They added: “Previous to AirTrunk, Blackstone’s portfolio consisted of $55 billion of knowledge facilities together with amenities beneath development, together with over $70 billion in potential pipeline improvement. We look ahead to partnering with the excellent AirTrunk administration group to additional speed up its progress.”
Robin Khuda, founder and chief government officer of AirTrunk, mentioned: “This transaction evidences the power of the AirTrunk platform in a robust performing sector as we seize the subsequent wave of progress from cloud providers and AI and help the vitality transition in Apac.”
Khuda added: “We look ahead to working with Blackstone and CPP Investments and benefitting from their scale capital, sector experience and helpful community throughout the assorted native markets, which is able to assist help the continued enlargement of AirTrunk.”
In a press release from CPP Investments, Max Biagosch, senior managing director, international head of Actual Property and head of Europe for CPP Investments mentioned: “This funding represents one other milestone in our broader information centre technique, additional enhancing our footprint within the area to the good thing about CPP contributors and beneficiaries. It is also a terrific instance of shut collaboration throughout the fund, with our infrastructure and actual property groups working collectively seamlessly to underwrite this funding.”
It’s anticipated that there shall be roughly $1 trillion of capital expenditures within the US over the subsequent 5 years to construct and facilitate new information facilities, with one other $1 trillion of capital expenditures exterior the US, in response to a press release from Blackstone.
Blackstone has invested in each the debt and fairness of different information heart firms, together with QTS,Coreweave and Digital Realty.
Earlier this 12 months in August, Macquarie Asset Administration, by way of Macquarie Korea Infrastructure Fund agreed to amass the Hanam Information Centre positioned within the Larger Seoul Space of South Korea. The sale value was KRW734 billion ($530 million); nevertheless, together with the transaction value and extra capital required to finish the remaining mechanical, electrical and plumbing works at Hanam IDC, the overall sale dimension was KRW918 billion.
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