Sovereign Giant Backs Data Centre Platform With £1.2B Investment
Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC has teamed up with German investor MEAG to invest €1.4B (£1.2B) in a UK and European data centre investment platform.
GIC and MEAG have backed the Europe, Middle East and Africa business of Vantage Data Centers to help the fast-growing company expand in the region.
It is the first time that GIC has invested in Vantage’s European business. MEAG, which is the investment arm of German insurer Munich Re, invested in the business previously. Other investors in the European platform include AustralianSuper, the Australian pension fund.
Vantage builds and operates data centres in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, and it has raised multiple rounds of new capital for expansion in the last year. It operates 25 data centres across the world, with another 10 in its development pipeline. Its European platform comprises 2.5 gigawatts of capacity in operation or under development, including four schemes in the UK.
The investment from GIC and MEAG takes the company past $12B of equity raised in the past 18 months to fund a development pipeline with a cost of more than $30B. In July, listed company DigitalBridge and private equity firm Silver Lake led a $9.2B investment in the private firm.
In May, Vantage raised £600B of debt secured against two data centres in Wales, its first European CMBS deal to issue bonds backed by data centres. The properties are valued at £1.1B.
GIC has been making a major push into the data centre sector, taking a 37.5% stake in October in a joint venture with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Equinix that could develop up to $15B of U.S. data centres.
