Vantage Data Centers announced a strategic partnership valued at $3.5 billion to accelerate the expansion of its wholesale data centers throughout North America and Europe.
Specifically, the Colony-led investor group will invest $1.2 billion in Vantage’s diversified portfolio, including 12 stabilized North American data centers, which span more than 1.4 million gross square feet and 150MW of IT capacity across key strategic markets in Santa Clara, California; Quincy, Washington; Montreal and Quebec City, Canada.
Vantage’s management team, led by Sureel Choksi, president and CEO, will continue to manage and operate these assets as part of its global data center footprint. Vantage will maintain the same level of superior service to its valued customers in each market, while simultaneously developing and operating additional data centers throughout North America and Europe. The capital provided by this transaction will support Vantage’s strategy to expand and enhance its global footprint.
“This innovative transaction establishes the most valuable portfolio of hyperscale data center assets in North America, backed and managed by the best-in-class management team at Vantage,” said Marc Ganzi, CEO of Colony Capital. “As Colony continues to build momentum around our strategic transformation to digital infrastructure, this investment demonstrates our commitment to acquire high-quality digital assets on our balance sheet. We expect this will benefit our shareholders by providing consistent, predictable earnings from long-term leases with the highest-caliber, investment-grade customers.”
“This strategic partnership with the Colony Capital-led investor group provides Vantage with a partner that deeply understands digital infrastructure,” said Choksi. “Vantage and its investor group are now even more well positioned to capitalize on a number of attractive market opportunities and deploy the necessary capital to drive innovation, deliver state-of-the-art facilities for our customers, and accelerate our expansion plans in existing and new markets globally.”
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Vantage Data Centers to acquire data center campus in Wales
The existing NGD data center campus is a Tier III 180MW facility, including an existing 72MW capacity and 108MW of expansion capacity. It uses 100% renewable energy and is rich in fiber delivered by many Tier 1 service providers. Latency between Wales and London is less than 1.5 milliseconds. In addition, NGD Cloud Gateway provides multiple access services, including Express Route and Connect, and NGD recently became a new hosting facility for LINX Wales. The highly secure site meets the U.K. government’s highest standards, and is one of many reasons that multiple blue-chip, high growth companies currently house their IT infrastructure within NGD’s 750,000 square foot facility.Upon closing, Wales will mark Vantage’s sixth strategic market in Europe following its entrance into five markets (Berlin, Frankfurt, Milan, Warsaw and Zurich) announced in February 2020, including the acquisition of Etix Everywhere.
“As the needs of our hyperscale, cloud and large enterprise customers continue to grow, Wales represents a highly attractive U.K. market offering both lower cost and greater scalability versus London,” said Sureel Choksi, president and CEO, Vantage Data Centers. “NGD customers benefit from very low network latency to London, low power costs and excellent fiber connectivity, coupled with the company’s massively scalable campus outside London’s highly constrained M25 area. We are thrilled to welcome Justin Jenkins and the entire NGD team to Vantage Europe.”
“The NGD team is excited to join Vantage Europe given our shared commitment to operational excellence, high quality facilities and sustainable building practices,” said Jenkins. “Vantage’s global footprint and broad customer relationships, combined with NGD’s growing hyperscale and enterprise U.K. customer base, position us ideally to accelerate the investment and growth of our U.K. business.”
The transaction will be funded with equity commitments from Digital Colony Partners and other investors in Vantage, as well as acquisition debt financing.
Vantage Data Centers launch $2 billion European expansion strategy
As part of its expansion strategy, Vantage has acquired Etix Everywhere, which has 50MW of built data center capacity across its footprint and is building a 55MW hyperscale data center campus in Frankfurt, Germany. Financial terms were not disclosed. In conjunction with the Etix acquisition, Antoine Boniface, former CEO of Etix, has joined the Vantage executive team to serve as president, Europe.
In addition, Vantage Europe has secured land and is planning to develop hyperscale data center campuses in Berlin, Milan, Warsaw and Zurich. The facilities, which are currently underway, are in the following European markets:
- Berlin: 64MW campus on 13 acres (5 hectares)
- Milan: 32MW campus on 17 acres (7 hectares)
- Warsaw: 64MW campus 12 acres (5 hectares)
- Zurich: 40MW campus on 7 acres (3 hectares)
Vantage said intends to invest USD $2 billion in its planned European expansion, including more than USD $800 million in new equity capital provided by Vantage’s current investors and a new commitment from Digital Colony Partners.
“As data center demand from our customer base continues to rapidly increase worldwide, Vantage is embarking upon its largest expansion ever into Europe through the development of five strategic markets,” said Sureel Choksi, president and CEO of Vantage. “The acquisition of Etix accelerates our expansion to Frankfurt, Europe’s highest growth hyperscale market. We are very excited to welcome Antoine and his team to lead our European business.”
Inclusive of this European expansion, Vantage will operate hyperscale data center campuses in 11 markets globally.
Vantage Data Centers added 41MW capacity in 2019
Vantage opened new facilities in Northern Virginia, Santa Clara, California, and Quebec City, in addition to its expansion in Montreal. The company also purchased land outside of Phoenix in Goodyear, Arizona, where it is developing the company’s largest campus to date.
“Our growth in 2019 was extraordinary, fulfilling the goals we set early in the year,” said Sureel Choksi, president and CEO, Vantage Data Centers. “Not only did we expand outside of the U.S. for the first time, we also opened three new facilities and entered four new markets. This tremendous growth has been fueled by demand from hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises and powered by an innovative funding strategy.”In addition, over the course of 2019, Vantage raised $1.6 billion in capital to support its expansion across North America. In addition, Vantage opened a second headquarters in Denver to facilitate the growth of its employee base.
