Stonepeak is acquiring a 29% stake in American Tower’s US data centre business in a $2.5bn (€2.5bn) deal.
The alternative investment firm, on behalf of its core infrastructure strategy, is investing in common equity and mandatorily convertible preferred equity, in the deal which gives American Tower’s US data centre division a $10.5bn enterprise value.
The data centre portfolio consists of 27 data centres in 10 US markets, more than 450 networks, 23 native cloud on-ramps and over 35,000 interconnections.
In November last year, American Tower announced the acquisition of US data firm CoreSite Realty.
Andrew Thomas, managing director and co-head of communications at Stonepeak, said American Tower has established one of the premier network dense, interconnection-focused data centre platforms in the US through the acquisition of CoreSite and previous acquisitions, which ”we view as a great fit for our core infrastructure strategy”.
”The platform is strategically positioned to be at the forefront of the continued shift from a traditional centralised infrastructure model to a cloud-based, connected and distributed digital infrastructure model and we are excited to partner with the American Tower team to help accelerate investment behind this trend in the years to come.”
Tom Bartlett, American Tower’s president and CEO, said: “While this transaction supports the equity financing component for our previously completed CoreSite acquisition, it also creates a platform through which growth opportunities can be strategically evaluated and financed, with American Tower and Stonepeak committed to executing on opportunities as the 5G ecosystem continues to develop.”
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