GLP Closes Maiden China Data Centre Fund With Assets of $360M

Industrial builder and investment manager GLP has announced the closing of its first digital infrastructure fund with RMB 2.6 billion ($360 million) in assets under management.

GLP China IDC Income Fund I will acquire an operational data centre developed by GLP and fully leased to a leading e-commerce company, according to a Tuesday announcement. The seed asset is located in Greater Beijing, GLP said, and is built to Tier III standards, which require redundant and dual-powered servers, network links and other components.

GLP described the fund’s limited partners as “top-tier China-based and international institutional investors”. The capital raise is the first to be announced by the group since the March sale of GLP’s non-China funds business to Ares Management for $3.7 billion.

“Digital infrastructure is essential to the adoption and advancement of AI,” said Teresa Zhuge, GLP China’s executive vice chairman and chairman of the executive committee. “GLP China IDC Income Fund I is indicative of strong investor demand for stable income streams backed by high-quality real assets with the potential of long-term capital appreciation.”

Newly Built Facility

GLP didn’t name the asset being acquired for the fund, but the group’s most visible Greater Beijing facility is GLP Huailai Data Center in Hebei province.

Construction began at Huailai in April 2022 and was completed last year. The 58,000 square metre (624,307 square foot) complex includes six data storage buildings, two office blocks and a power substation.

Mingtiandi reached out to GLP for further information about the seed asset and had not received a response by the time of publication.

Launched in 2018, the GLP China IDC platform has 12 operational data centres with 320 megawatts of in-service capacity, as well as eight projects under development that are expected to increase total IT capacity to 1.4 gigawatts upon completion.

“With our operating and investment expertise, customer access and a track record of growth at scale, we are confident in building a competitive and differentiated data centre business to capture outsized growth in the new digital economy,” Zhuge said.

Focus on Greater China

Last month’s disposal of GCP International to Los Angeles-based Ares marked the separation of the offshore fund manager from GLP’s remaining business, which continues to operate from its Singapore headquarters with a focus on investing in Greater China.

Under co-founder and CEO Ming Z Mei, GLP launched its fund management arm in 2011 and scaled the business to $125 billion in assets under management as of last June. The GCP International business acquired by Ares encompasses $42 billion of this AUM, covering Japan, Europe, the US, Brazil and Vietnam.

GLP has retained its existing balance-sheet assets and stakes in GCP International funds, and in December the group reached the closing of its 13th mainland China income fund with RMB 2.8 billion ($380 million) in AUM.