Private equity real estate firm Evans Randall Investors has sold the AMS5 data centre in Amsterdam for €25.1 mln to tenant Equinix, a US-headquartered data centre operator and REIT.
According to Evans Randall, the sale achieved an uplift on the acquisition price of around 40% and a net overall IRR of 15%. Throughout the lifetime of the investment, the asset has delivered a cash on cash return of 7.5% per annum.
'This investment is an example of identifying wider macro trends that influence real estate, including the likes of cloud computing and ecommerce,' said Kent Gardner, chief executive of Evans Randall Investors. 'The growth of the digital economy and a greater appreciation of the importance of good connectivity has highlighted how data centres form an important part of the infrastructure chain.'
AMS5 is located in the South Axis business district, the core Amsterdam location for prime data centres. The high-specification centre was constructed in December 2011 and totals 13,120 m2.
Evans Randall instructed advisors CBRE to sell the property in March of this year with a guide price of €23 mln.