Apollo Makes ‘Significant’ Investment In Data Center Developer
Private equity giant Apollo Global Management has agreed to provide a substantial investment in data center provider Yondr Group in what the asset manager is calling the first step of a broader partnership.
Apollo announced Monday that its infrastructure fund made a “significant capital investment” in Amsterdam-based Yondr, which develops and operates build-to-suit data centers leased to cloud providers and other hyperscale tenants. While the exact size and terms of the investment weren't disclosed, both companies indicated proceeds will be used to facilitate the continued build-out of Yondr’s portfolio in Europe and the Americas.
“With increasing global demand for hyperscale data center capacity, we believe that nimble, proven build-to-suit players like Yondr are well positioned for sustainable growth,” Apollo partners Trevor Mills and Andrew Kirby wrote in a joint statement, characterizing the firm’s investment in Yondr as the start of “a long-term, wide-ranging partnership to help support their continued success.”
Since its founding in 2011, Yondr has developed more than 450 megawatts of data center capacity, most of it in Europe. The firm is owned by Cathexis Group, a single-member family office with investments across the real estate, energy and construction industries.
Yondr has four additional data center campuses under construction, including its first facility in the U.S., according to Data Center Dynamics. The 96 MW, two-building campus in Loudoun County, Virginia, is being built in partnership with JK Land Holdings. Construction began on the project in October.
The Virginia project is part of a $2B North American expansion effort Yondr launched in May 2021 after hiring a former Google data center executive and opening an office in San Francisco.
The partnership with Yondr isn't Apollo’s first foray into the digital infrastructure space. The investment giant, which reports close to $600B in assets under management, used to own data center firm Rackspace and tower provider Parallel Infrastructure, according to Data Center Dynamics.
Apollo is the latest major asset management firm to acquire or make a major investment in data center developers, with investors increasingly focused on developers that provide wholesale colocation facilities to hyperscale tenants. Partners Group acquired EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure for $1.2B in November, while Brookfield Digital Infrastructure and Digital Bridge are reportedly engaged in a bidding war for developer Compass Datacenters.
KKR and GI Partners completed their $15B take-private acquisition of CyrusOne in March last year, and Blackstone took QTS private in 2021 for more than $10B.
