SC Capital Sets Up $2B Data Centre Investment Strategy With ADIA

Singapore-based SC Capital Partners has formed a data centre investment strategy with commitments from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, giving the $790 billion sovereign fund the ability to scale up to $2 billion in equity to support the scheme.

The programme targets data centre investments across the Asia Pacific region with a focus on Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia, SC Capital said Wednesday in a release. ADIA is also investing in SC Capital’s pan-Asian opportunistic investment strategy, the firm revealed.

The news follows an announcement earlier this year that SC Capital had created a pan-Asian platform, SC Zeus Data Centers, which will be the operating partner for the investment programme.

“This new programme complements our existing pan-Asian opportunistic strategy and allows us to significantly scale up our data centre capabilities and platform in the fastest developing data centre region in the world,” said Suchad Chiaranussati, chairman and founder of SC Capital Partners, which has $6.3 billion in assets under management.

Platform Readies Pipeline

SC Zeus Data Centers launched in February with the development of a hyperscale South Korean facility at an expected cost of $500 million. SC Zeus is building a 45-megawatt data centre in Seoul and has already set up an Asia Pacific pipeline with 250MW of total IT load.

The firm hired industry veteran Joe Gooi, formerly of US giant Digital Realty, as chief executive of the platform. SC Zeus is a joint venture of SC Capital and Singapore-based Abner Investments, according to a report in the Global Legal Chronicle.

The vertically integrated platform has a presence in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. It serves as a one-stop solution to the various real estate strategies managed by SC Capital, being able to offer design, development, asset management, leasing/sales, project management, operations and technical services for data centres.

“SC Zeus Data Centers is assembling a healthy pipeline of projects and will expeditiously implement our strategy of delivering best in class, efficient and sustainable data centres for our partners,” Gooi said. “We are confident that this programme with ADIA will enhance our speed to market during this exciting phase of the growing data centre sector in Asia Pacific.”

Race Hits High Gear

Asia’s data centre race is heating up again, as shown by SC Capital’s latest deal and a pair of announcements made by competitors last week.

Blackstone launched its first wholly owned data centre platform in Asia, Lumina CloudInfra, with two large pipeline projects in India, choosing one of 2022’s most resilient property markets as the jumping-off point for an expansion of the private equity giant’s digital infrastructure footprint in the region.

BDx Indonesia revealed plans to develop a 100MW data centre campus near Jakarta as the operator’s fifth server-hosting facility in and around the capital, signalling a robust expansion in the fast-growing market.

In other data centre news last week, Switzerland’s Partners Group said it planned to invest up to $1.2 billion to acquire and expand US operator Edgecore Digital Infrastructure, taking over a hyperscale specialist co-founded by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC more than four years ago.