Blackstone funds and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) have bought Asia Pacific data centre platform AirTrunk from Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) in a A$24bn (€14.6bn) deal.
MAM and PSP Investments have sold their 88% stake in AirTrunk. In addition to this, AirTrunk’s founder and CEO, Robin Khuda, will also sell a portion of his shares.
Khuda, who established AirTrunk in 2015, will remain with the company as the CEO.
MAM and PSP Investments acquired a majority stake in AirTrunk in 2020. Since then, the company has expanded from five data centres in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, to become a leading hyperscale data centre specialist across 11 sites, including Japan and Malaysia.
The deal on behalf of funds managed by Blackstone Real Estate Partners, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, and Blackstone’s private equity strategy for individual investors, represents Blackstone’s largest investment in the Asia Pacific region.
Jon Gray, president and COO of Blackstone, said: “AirTrunk is another vital step as Blackstone seeks to be the leading digital infrastructure investor in the world across the ecosystem, including data centres, power and related services.”
Sean Klimczak, global head of Blackstone Infrastructure and Nadeem Meghji, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate, said: “Prior to AirTrunk, Blackstone’s portfolio consisted of US$55bn (€49.8bn) of data centres including facilities under construction, along with over US$70bn in prospective pipeline development.”
Max Biagosch, senior MD, global head of real assets and head of Europe for CPP Investments, said: “This investment represents another milestone in our broader data centre strategy, further enhancing our footprint in the region to the benefit of CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”
Ani Satchcroft, co-head of infrastructure for Asia Pacific at MAM, AirTrunk’s majority investor, said: “Our journey with AirTrunk, and the drive and foresight of our teams in Asia Pacific, has resulted in AirTrunk expanding its footprint across key markets in the region, achieving a more than eightfold increase in contracted capacity.”
Sandiren Curthan, MD and global head of Infrastructure investments at PSP Investments said the partnership delivered outstanding results for and validated the pension plan’s investment strategy of focussing on partnering with top-tier management teams and like-minded investors to support infrastructure businesses globally in their growth.
AirTrunk’s valuation of over A$24bn includes the cost of planned construction projects.
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