PAG’s Flow Digital Ties Up with Ayala Land for Philippine Data Centre JV

PAG has become the latest international fund manager to set up a new data centre in the Philippines, with the Hong Kong-based investment group on Tuesday announcing a joint venture with the Southeast Asian country’s largest property developer, Ayala Land.

A local unit of the private equity firm’s Flow Digital Infrastructure division has signed an agreement with AyalaLand Logistics Holdings Corp (ALLHC), a subsidiary of Ayala Land, to develop an initial 4.5-megawatt data centre, with additional carrier-neutral facilities planned for roll-out across the country.

“We are pleased to partner with ALLHC as they prepare to make this significant contribution to developing digital infrastructure capabilities in the Philippines,” Flow chief executive Amandine Wang said in a statement. “The decades of design and operational experience of the Flow team, combined with ALLHC’s established record in industrial real estate development, makes this an ideal partnership to meet the rising demand for digital infrastructure in the country.”

The joint venture is the first project Flow has unveiled in the region since PAG, which has $50 billion in assets under management around the region, first launched the data centre initiative last August. The firm says it now has $2 billion in data centre assets in its portfolio.

Ayala Knows Digital

“This investment will contribute to the Philippines’ transition to a digital economy. Furthermore, we believe this partnership with Flow enhances the value of ALLHC’s industrial landbank,” said ALLHC president and CEO Jose Emmanuel H Jalandoni, who also serves as senior vice president of Ayala Land.

While Ayala Land is best known for residential projects like the Ayala Alabang luxury community, ALLHC runs  range of businesses more closely aligned with data centres including units dedicated to distribution facilities, cold storage, tech parks and power generation. The company also has a portfolio of four industrial parks, including Laguna Technopark and Cavite Technopark outside of Manila.

The Ayala Land-PAG tie-up is the latest in a flurry of international data centre initiatives in the Philippines, with four major projects having been announced in the last six months.

Green Data

Ayala Corporation, the parent organisation of Ayala Land, starred in the most recent previous deal when the conglomerate, together with its Globe Telecom unit, announced a $350 million agreement with Singapore’s ST Telemedia in March.

The joint venture formed under that agreement, dubbed KarmanEdge, aims to develop, build and operate data centres across the Philippine archipelago.

Just one month earlier, Singapore data centre provider SpaceDC had unveiled plans for a hyperscale project outside of Manila, with the company aiming to develop a 72MW campus in Rizal province, just east of the national capital region.

SpaceDC’s project aspires to create the country’s first green server-hosting facility, which would encompass three four-storey buildings spanning a total of 43,000 square metres (462,850 square feet) in combined floor area.

In December of last year, Singapore-based Digital Edge formed a $100 million joint venture with Philippine real estate firm Threadborne Group for a 10MW data centre in Laguna province, south of the capital, with that project targeting the colocation market in the country.

According to government estimates, the Philippines has 44.2 million internet users, with that number representing about a third of the total across the ASEAN region. That user population, combined with the rise of e-commerce and growing use of cloud platforms, is credited with boosting the archipelago’s appeal with developers of digital infrastructure.