ST Telemedia Global Data Centres Completes Sale of 40% Stake in UK Unit to Macquarie

Temasek Holdings-backed ST Telemedia Global Data Centres has completed the sale of a 40 percent stake in its UK-based Virtus subsidiary to Macquarie Asset Management.

The investment by the Australian fund manager will enable the digital infrastructure arm of Singapore’s ST Telemedia to scale up its operations in Europe, STT GDC said Tuesday in a release.

Through Virtus, STT GDC manages 11 data centres in the Greater London region with a combined capacity of more than 180 megawatts. Virtus aims for £2 billion in investment in its target markets over the next five years, with plans to add campuses in Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland.

“Macquarie Asset Management’s investment is a testament to the strength and scalability of our data centre business,” said STT GDC president and CEO Bruno Lopez. “This substantial capital injection coupled with both partners’ unique expertise will help us accelerate our expansion into the European Economic Area to capture the enormous opportunities ahead and cement our leadership in the industry.”

Sustainable European Growth

Macquarie Asset Management made the Virtus investment on behalf of the Sydney-based firm’s seventh European infrastructure fund. No deal value was reported for the transaction, which closed last month.

London-headquartered Virtus is focused on sustainability, sourcing its electricity needs from renewable energy and targeting net-zero emissions across its data centre operations by 2030, according to Macquarie.

“Through this long-term investment, coupled with our sustainability expertise, we intend to help drive their ambitious expansion across continental Europe where we believe there will be sizeable growth opportunities for data centre players during the next decade,” said Nathan Luckey, a senior managing director within Macquarie Asset Management’s real assets team.

STT GDC manages a portfolio of over 170 data centres in Singapore, India, China, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Britain. The company supports a global IT load of more than 2.2 gigawatts across a net floor area in excess of 1 million square metres (10.8 million square feet).

Covering the Bases in Asia

In its home region, STT GDC announced last June that it was teaming up with Samsung Group’s property investment arm and an unnamed institutional investor to develop a 30MW data centre in Seoul, marking its second facility in South Korea’s fast-growing digital infrastructure sector. The data centre is scheduled to begin operation in the first half of 2025.

STT GDC has also formed a $350 million joint venture with Ayala Corp and its Globe telecom unit to develop data centres in the Philippines. Dubbed KarmanEdge, the JV will develop, build and operate data centres across the archipelago with a long-term goal of dominating the market by providing services both to local enterprises and global hyperscalers.

In October 2021, STT GDC gained its first foothold in Japan by teaming up with Australia’s Goodman to develop two facilities in Inzai City that are expected to provide up to 60MW of capacity and be worth around $2.9 billion when completed.

That venture in Asia’s second-largest economy was announced less than a month after STT GDC launched its first hyperscale facility in Thailand, known as STT Bangkok 1. The Thai announcement followed soon after the Singapore firm’s entry into the Indonesian market with plans to construct a new data centre campus in Jakarta with up to 72MW of capacity.