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Macquarie Capital to put $5bn in equity investment towards US wholesale data centre operator

The global data centre colocation and interconnection market is estimated to be worth $53.9 billion and projects at a compound annual growth rate of 11.4%, according to Structure Research.

By João Marques Lima

Founder and Editor, The Tech Capital

3 Mins

June 24, 2021 | 4:42 PM BST

Macquarie Capital to put $5bn in equity investment towards US wholesale data centre operator

Prime Data Centers' Sacramento facility's data hall 1. Source: Prime Data Centers

The Tech Capital

Investment vehicle Macquarie Capital has formed a strategic partnership with and made an equity investment in Prime Data Centers that is targeted to exceed $5 billion over the next 10 years.

Prime is a California-based wholesale data centre developer and operator with existing facilities in the state in Sacramento, Santa Clara and Hayward.

The company is also currently in the midst of an extensive expansion roadmap, with a pipeline of data centre projects throughout the Americas and Europe amounting to 400 MW of hosting power.

Under the partnership and investment, Macquarie Capital, the advisory, capital markets and principal investment arm of Macquarie Group, will lend its infrastructure investing and development capabilities, along with its know-how in the digital ecosystem to Prime’s data centre infrastructure operations to enterprise and hyperscale companies.

Mark Bradshaw head of Infrastructure investment and development for Europe and Americas at Macquarie Capital, said: “Data centres are a critical component of the digital infrastructure system and innovative developers such as Prime are positioned to deliver flexible, strategic solutions that data-reliant companies need more than ever.

“With this partnership and investment, Macquarie Capital can leverage its green energy platform, financial capabilities and its global digital infrastructure experience to help Prime Data Centers accelerate the development of a promising project pipeline of 400MW and drive long-term growth.”

The CEO and founder of Prime, Nicholas Laag, said of the partnership: “Macquarie Capital is an excellent fit for us, not only because of the strategic nature that is truly unique and a potential paradigm shift in solving for the delivery of sustainable mission critical infrastructure on demand at whatever capacity, but also because of their long-term investment horizon to really scale and leverage our mutual assets and people.

“We are planning for 10 and 20 years and not only one, three or five years, which we believe will align well with customers.”

This investment is being led by specialists within Macquarie Capital’s Infrastructure Investment and Development team that focus on asset creation and stabilisation opportunities within the broader digital infrastructure ecosystem, including towers, data centres, fibre, small cells and other related digital infrastructure assets.

Macquire explained this team invests balance sheet capital to sponsor, develop and grow landmark projects that create new digital, transport and social infrastructure.

Macquarie Capital currently has over $25 billion of infrastructure projects under construction or development and is an industry leader across transportation, social, communications, renewable energy, and conventional energy infrastructure. Recent digital infrastructure transactions include the launch of last-mile fiber provider Accelecom, an investment in UK rural superfast broadband business Voneus Limited, and the acquisition of MasMovil’s Fibre-to-the-Home network in Spain.

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João Marques Lima

Founder and Editor, The Tech Capital

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