GIC, Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund, with US$100 billion in assets under management, and Equinix, the global interconnection and data center company, have agreed to enter into a US$1 billion joint venture to acquire and develop six hyperscale data centers in Europe.
Under the terms of the agreement, GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the joint venture and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest. The joint venture is expected to close in Q3 2019, pending regulatory approval and other closing conditions.
The Venture will acquire two operational data centers in London and Paris, which together deliver approximately 31MW of critical power to customers. It plans to further develop four data centers in Amsterdam, Frankfurt (two sites) and London.
“It has been a long journey to reach this point, but we are tremendously excited to announce the formation of our first xScale data centers joint venture. Partnering with a world-class investment firm like GIC will provide the opportunity to make significant capital investments in order to capture targeted large footprint deployments while continuing to optimise our capital structure. The JV structure will enable us to extend our cloud leadership while providing significant value to a critical set of hyperscale customers. We look forward to launching similar JVs in other operating regions and believe that these efforts will continue to further differentiate Equinix as the trusted center of a cloud-first world,” said Charles Meyers, President and CEO, Equinix.
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“As a long-term value investor, we are confident that the strong growth in data consumption and public cloud data storage will continue to drive secular demand for hyperscale data centers. We believe the venture portfolio, which is welllocated in the primary European data center hubs and under the management of an established partner such as Equinix, will generate steady and resilient returns in the long run. We look forward to expanding our global partnerships and exploring further opportunities in this fast-growing sector worldwide,” said Lee Kok Sun, Chief Investment Officer, GIC Real Estate.
