Cromwell Property Group and Stratus Data Centres – which is part of EXS Capital Group – are partnering to invest in and manage a data centre property platform in Europe.
The vehicle is the new Stratus Cromwell Data Centre (SCDC) fund, targeting an eventual gross asset value of over $1 billion (€882,455,000), with 25% of the portfolio already identified by the first two strategic sites under exclusivity.
Cromwell European REIT will co-invest a 50% stake in the SCDC Fund’s first two data centre projects, located in London and Frankfurt.
The first project is a two-stage, 100 megawatt (MW) data centre serving London. The six-acre project site is well-located on fibre optic routes in the east of the city, will be powered by renewable energy and negotiations with potential tenant operators are well advanced.
Construction is expected to be completed in 2021.
The second, larger project is on a 34-acre strategic site serving Frankfurt. A multi-stage 300MW project, with advanced pre-leasing agreements and planning processes underway, once completed it will be one of the largest data centre campuses in Germany and western Europe.
The fund is also targeting the Asia/Pacific region.
Cromwell’s chief investment officer, Rob Percy said: ‘The partnership is another good example of our ‘invest to manage’ strategy in operation. We are delighted to be able to partner with a specialist organisation of Stratus’ calibre to create an exciting investment opportunity that we know will be in strong demand from both leading hyper-scale data centre operators and international capital partners.'
Eric Solberg, chairman of Stratus and EXS, commented: ‘We are delighted to combine our development and data centre expertise in international markets with Cromwell’s capital, funds management and real estate investment experience.
‘The London and Frankfurt projects are just the beginning, with further projects identified in key gateway cities in Europe including Dublin and Milan, and in Asia, including Tokyo, Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai. As a specialist ‘developer of developers’ in Asian real estate, EXS is excited to bring our network of regional local partners to the SCDC Fund.’
