AustralianSuper is investing €1.5bn to acquire a “significant minority stake” in Vantage Data Centers EMEA, a DigitalBridge-owned hyperscale data centre operator focused on Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
AustralianSuper said the investment marks the €180bn Australian pension fund’s exposure in hyperscale data centres, and provides it with “access to an attractive market with strong growth prospects”.
London-headquartered Vantage Data Centers EMEA is focused on key European markets growing through greenfield development and accretive M&A. The company has campuses in Cardiff, UK; Frankfurt and Berlin, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; Milan, Italy; and Zurich Switzerland. The company also has expanded to South Africa with a greenfield development in Johannesburg.
Together, AustralianSuper and DigitalBridge-sponsored vehicles intend to support Vantage EMEA’s expansion and development of hyperscale data centres.
AustralianSuper already has a more than €24bn infrastructure portfolio invested primarily in developed markets, targeting large direct ownership stakes across the infrastructure spectrum.
Nik Kemp, the head of infrastructure at AustralianSuper, said: “We look forward to working with DigitalBridge and Vantage EMEA to continue to support the rapid growth of its customers while also delivering on our purpose to help more than 3.2m members achieve their best financial position in retirement.
“The Vantage EMEA platform will complement our existing digital infrastructure investments and this acquisition represents an important step for the fund as we build out our infrastructure capability in Europe.”
Jon Mauck, senior managing director at DigitalBridge who leads DigitalBridge’s data centre investment strategy, said: “Digital infrastructure continues to demonstrate its resilience as an asset class, and we look forward to building on our track record as we become a partner of choice to Australian investors seeking to increase their exposure to high-quality digital infrastructure investments.”
Sureel Choksi, president and CEO of Vantage Data Centers, said: “As data centre demand continues to rapidly accelerate across EMEA, this investment will fuel Vantage’s ability to accelerate the growth of our environmentally friendly, large-scale data centre footprint across the region and further deepen our relationships with customers as we enable them to grow and scale their businesses with reliable, efficient and sustainable data centres.”
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