A consortium of investors led by Blackstone has purchased the Asia-Pacific data centre platform from Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), for an implied enterprise value of over $24 billion, the fund manager said on Thursday.
The acquisition, according to Jon Gray, president and chief operating officer of Blackstone, represents “another vital step” as Blackstone seeks to be the leading digital infrastructure investor in the world across the ecosystem, including data centres, power and related services.
“This is Blackstone at its best – leveraging our global platform to capitalise on our highest conviction theme,” Gray said.
Digital infrastructure has recently experienced unprecedented demand driven by the AI revolution as well as the broader digitisation of the global economy.
It is expected that there will be approximately US$1 trillion of capital expenditures in the United States over the next five years to build and facilitate new data centres, with another US$1 trillion of capital expenditures outside the United States.
Blackstone plans to capitalise on this movement, while also helping address the sector’s immense power needs, including as an investor in power and utility companies.
Commenting on the significance of the AirTrunk deal, Sean Klimczak, global head of Blackstone Infrastructure, and Nadeem Meghji, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate, said: “Prior to AirTrunk, Blackstone’s portfolio consisted of US$55 billion of data centres including facilities under construction, along with over US$70 billion in prospective pipeline development”.
“We look forward to partnering with the outstanding AirTrunk management team to further accelerate its growth.”
The consortium, made up of Blackstone Real Estate Partners, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, and Blackstone’s private equity strategy for individual investors, along with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, is now waiting for the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board to greenlight the deal – said to be the largest Blackstone investment in the Asia-Pacific region.
In a separate statement, MAM and PSP Investments said the agreement is for the sale of the entirety of their respective interests totalling 88 per cent of AirTrunk.
As part of the transaction, AirTrunk founder and chief executive officer Robin Khuda will also realise part of his stake.
“The AirTrunk story is one of genuine partnership between MAM, PSP Investments and AirTrunk’s world class team,” said Ani Satchcroft, co-head of infrastructure for Asia-Pacific at MAM.
“Our journey with AirTrunk, and the drive and foresight of our teams in Asia-Pacific, has resulted in AirTrunk expanding its footprint across key markets in the region, achieving a more than eightfold increase in contracted capacity.”
MAM confirmed that Khuda, who established AirTrunk in 2015, will remain with the company as the CEO.
AirTrunk is the largest data centre platform in the Asia-Pacific region, with a sizeable presence in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It has more than 800MW of capacity committed to customers and owns land that can support over 1GW of future growth across the region.
