Australian government pension fund provider Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation has teamed up with New Zealand-based infrastructure investment company Infratil to take over Canberra Data Centres (CDC), in a combined $784 million acquisition.
Terms of the deal will see both parties acquire a 48 percent shareholding in CDC for total cash equity consideration of $392 million, including estimated transaction costs of $11 million.
Subject to approval, the transaction is expected to settle in late July 2016, with the trans-Tasman pair set to take control of CDC’s four facilities, Fyshwick 1, and Hume 1, 2 and 3.
“The acquisition of CDC provides Infratil with a meaningful exposure to the emerging data and related telecommunications infrastructure sector, which we have been following for some time,” Infratil CEO, Marko Bogoievski, said.
“Over the past eight years, CDC has successfully grown to become the leading provider of outsourced data centre services in Canberra and a trusted partner to numerous Federal Government agencies and private sector customers.
“Through its customised, modular design, CDC is able to offer highly secure and flexible data centre solutions to its customers.
“CDC is well positioned to take advantage of industry tailwinds including continued growth in outsourcing, data storage and processing. We are looking forward to supporting the company in its next phase of development."
Terms of the deal will see CDC founders Ken Lowe, Craig Sebbens and Greg Boorer retain four percent of the company, and remain in the management team going forward.
With construction of its fourth data centre (Hume 3) currently underway, the current annualised run rate of EBITDA is estimated at $50 million with strong anticipated growth of around 30 percent through to full year June 2017 as the business fills existing capacity and commissions Hume 3.
“The business currently has ~30MW of capacity split across three facilities, and two data centre campuses, with two high quality greenfield development opportunities underway totalling another ~27MW of capacity,” Bogoievski added.
“With the support of Infratil the business is better positioned than ever to grow in support of its customers over the long term.”
