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Actis has agreed to buy 11 data centres from Nabiax, a European Data Centre operator owned by Asterion Industrial Partners and Telefonica, spread over six countries in Latin America and the United States. Actis will eventually become the sole owner of the data centre.
Asterion Industrial Partners, which purchased Telefonica’s data centre assets four years ago, will continue to own, operate, and grow the European assets, while Actis will be the new owners of the data centres in the Americas, which are located in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and with a small exposure in the United States (Florida). The 11 sites have a total IT load capacity of 23 MW, with potential to grow.
Telefonica originally created the assets for their own operations as well as for their clients, and the business is still an anchor tenant under a long-term lease.
This is Actis’ sixth investment in the digital infrastructure market, with over $1 billion already committed, and it complements Actis’ five existing data centre platforms in Asia and Africa.
The Latin American data centre sector market is expected to increase 2.5x over the next five years, owing to continuous growth in data generation and consumption, cloud computing and storage usage, outsourced co-location trends, big data and artificial intelligence.
Mauricio Giusti, Partner in Actis’ Sao Paulo office, said: “We are delighted to deepen our footprint in the digital infrastructure sector with the acquisition of these anchor assets for our pan-Latam Data Centre platform. We are also excited to partner with Telefonica in the region as a key customer of the platform, while also positioning the data centres as carrier neutral facilities. Data centres are crucial in connecting communities, enabling economic growth, and in providing access to information and education.”
Adrian Mucalov, Partner and Head of Long-Life Infrastructure at Actis, added: “This is an exciting transaction reflecting Actis’ position as a global infrastructure investor. We will leverage Actis’ expertise in the energy sector to drive energy efficiencies (PUE) and to increase the use of renewable energy powering the data centres. Investing into an established, resilient business with a strong long term position fits well with our strategy.”
Actis was advised in this transaction by BBVA, Pinheiro Neto Advogados, and Linklaters