UBS Asset Management (UBS-AM) Real Estate & Private Markets’ (REPM) infrastructure debt platform (IDP) is financing a data centre facility in Norway.

The manager’s IDP has provided a 5-year financing arrangement, totalling €50m, to support the continued development of the Lefdal Mine DataCenter (LMD) located in the re-purposed Lefdal olivine mine in Western Norway.

LMD is owned by the Columbia Threadneedle European Sustainable Infrastructure Fund (ESIF) and German Edge Cloud, part of Friedhelm Loh.

Alessandro Merlo, the head of investment, infrastructure debt at UBS-AM REPM, said: “Data centres are an attractive investment opportunity, which have further proved their importance and vital role for businesses during the pandemic crisis.

“We’re pleased to be working with LMD to finance the unique development of this data centre location. This transaction is the first investment for IDP in Norway and the third in the wider Nordic region – an important market for the platform. We are pleased to also support one of the greenest data centres in Europe with very limited environmental footprint and CO2 emissions, in line with our commitment to responsible investing in real assets.”

Jørn Skaane, CEO Lefdal Mine Datacenter, said: “Demand for data centre services is only growing, and clients are increasingly attracted to LMD’s unique green credentials.

”We welcome the completion of this facility with IDP which strengthens our ability to respond to client demand and invest in growth opportunities. We look forward to working with IDP over the coming years .”

The LMD transaction is the sixth investment of IDP in the digital infrastructure sector and the first one in Norway. Since its launch in 2015, IDP has financed 29 infrastructure projects across 13 jurisdictions in Europe. 

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here. 

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