This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
Swiss private equity firm Partners Group has agreed to buy Sydney-based GreenSquareDC for $1.2bn.
Founded in 2020, the data centre provider said the deal enabled them to acquire a site in Sydney.
Under Partners Group’s ownership, GreenSquareDC will become an owner, developer, and operator of large-scale sustainable data centers across Australia.
GreenSquareDC recently acquired its first site in Norwest in Sydney, a brownfield data center with an existing powered shell and an adjoining landbank that will enable the campus to expand to 96 MW of compute capacity.
The company has also secured land options on several sites in strategic locations across Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.
Partners Group Bharath Rajagopalan, member of management, infrastructure Asia, said the Australian data center sector is experiencing robust demand from hyperscale customers for high-density spaces to support cloud and AI workloads.
“The implementation of supportive policies driving domestic AI research and sovereign AI models in Australia is also expected to support future demand. We are excited to support GreenSquareDC in its mission to deliver reliable, scalable, and sustainable data center solutions to customers,” said Rajagopalan.
“Data centers are on a structural growth path supported by thematic tailwinds, including the increasing use of generative AI, growth in cloud adoption, and the migration of data center workloads to co-location sites,”Partners Group managing director of infrastructure Asia Nicholas Kuys said. “The sector has strong infrastructure characteristics driven by the essentiality of the service, long-term contracts, and significant capital intensity. GreenSquareDC represents an opportunity to back a talented management team in the growing Australian market.”
In 2023, GreenSquareDC partnered with Multiplex for a 96MW data centre in Perth’s Belmont.
“The acquisition of our first site in Sydney provides GreenSquareDC with a speed-to-market advantage in serving our customers’ near-term requirements,” said Walt Coulston, CEO at GreenSquareDC.
“This significant investment allows us to scale rapidly to help meet the growing demands of the world’s largest technology companies.”
Berkeley Advisory, RBC Capital Markets, and Norton Rose Fulbright advised GreenSquareDC on the transaction, while Clifford Chance and Alvarez & Marsal advised Partners Group.
Partners Group has invested up to US$4bn (AU$6.3bn) in data centres since 2021, including US$1.9bn for US company EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure and Iceland-based at North.
The Australian data centre sector is set to grow to $40bn over the coming four years, driven by hyperscalers and the hasty adoption of generative AI, according to a CBRE report. Data centres are the third most preferred sector for investment, behind only industrial and build-to-sell assets.