CapitaLand Investment (CLI) has established its first China data centre development fund and seeded the vehicle with two projects in Greater Beijing with a completed value of S$1bn (€701m).
Total equity committed to CapitaLand China Data Centre Partners (CDCP) is S$530m, with existing and new global institutional investor clients holding an 80% effective stake in CDCP. CLI has a 20% cornerstone co-investment in the vehicle.
CLI will partner with a Chinese operator to run the data centres, which will provide 100MW on completion in 2025.
Patrick Boocock, CEO, private equity alternative assets, CLI, told IPE Real Assets the fund signalled CapitaLand’s plan to increase its presence in the Chinese data centre market.
Boocock said the group had been investing in the broader Chinese property market for close to 30 years, and currently owned a single data centre in Shanghai.
“We are seeing strong institutional investor interest in this sector and may look to raise other funds as we build our data centre pipeline across China.”
Puah Tze Shyang, CEO of CLI China, said: “CLI’s competitive advantage lies in its position as a vertically-integrated group in China with a full range of capabilities, from investment sourcing and development, to having a strong customer network, to operations.”
Michelle Lee, managing director, of private funds (data centre) at CLI, said: “There is strong interest in CLI’s future data centre projects in China and Asia-Pacific at large.”
CapitaLand entered the sector when it inherited a portfolio held in the former Ascendas Singbridge, which merged with CapitaLand in 2019.
It currently has a S$6bn data centre portfolio on a completed basis, with most of its centres acquired in the past two years, including a portfolio in Europe and the UK. Most of its assets reside in a listed fund and it manages two single-asset data centre vehicles in South Korea.
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