Bank club grants EUR 230m loan for data centre

A bank consortium has provided around EUR 230 mln of debt to the German data centre specialist E-shelter for the construction of a new centre in Germany. The members of the financing club are Italian lender Unicredit and German banks Bayerische Landesbank, and pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank

Unicredit acted as mandated lead arranger and facility agent.

E-shelter, which develops and operates high-availability data centres in Germany and Switzerland, will use the loan to fund the development of a new facility in Rüsselsheim near Frankfurt. The scheme will offer a total of 17,600 m² of space and will be developed in four phases, with the first building scheduled for completion in November 2012.

The company, which earlier this year gained US private equity firm Abry Partners as a new investor, has developed over 80,000 m² of data-centre space over the past 10 years. In June 2011, E-shelter opened its first data centre in Switzerland with the opening of a facility in Rümlang near Zurich.

Clifford Chance advised e-shelter on the partnership with Boston-based Abry Partners and on the financing.