A vast data centre and office complex in Dallas, Texas, has changed hands in an $800m (€641m) deal, as US-based ASB Real Estate Investments sells the asset to internet firm Equinix.
The property, Infomart Dallas, has 1.6msqft of space and Equinix is its largest tenant accounting for around 40% of the lease revenue from the facilities.
Washington DC-based ASB Real Estate Investments, a division of ASB Capital Management, said it was an early institutional investor in data centres, and bought Infomart Dallas back in 2005.
Robert Bellinger, the property firm’s president and chief executive, said: “ASB has benefited from significant value creation over the term of our investment, and we saw the opportunity to realise gains for our investors, while rebalancing our diversified real estate portfolio in line with allocation targets.”
ASB is executing the deal — which is set to close in the second quarter of this year — on behalf of its Allegiance Fund, a $7.4bn core real estate investment vehicle.
Equinix will be paying for the asset with a mix of cash and debt securities, which will be paid out to ASB over a 36-month period following closing.
Karl Strohmeyer, president for the Americas at Equinix, said: “As Dallas becomes an increasingly strategic North American interconnection hub for businesses making the shift to digital, the acquisition of the Infomart will enable existing and new customers to scale their operations with Equinix.”
Equinix said the building generated around $50m of revenue in 2017, of which it had paid $20m.
The tech company said there was a lot of potential revenue to be made from developing the land next to the building, which was part of the deal.
The comes the same week that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Canadian pension fund OPTrust announced they were to invest $800m in data centres in North America.
