SoftBank, Citadel’s Griffin Boost GDS International Equity Raise to $1.2B

The international unit of Shanghai-based data centre firm GDS Holdings has won the backing of Japan’s SoftBank and Citadel boss Ken Griffin for an upsized Series B round to raise $1.2 billion in equity.

The new commitments from the SoftBank Vision Fund and the billionaire founder of Miami-based hedge fund Citadel come after GDS International, also known as DigitalLand, announced the Series B funding round as a $1 billion equity raise in October. At the time, new investors included Manhattan-based Coatue Management and Boston’s Baupost Group.

The Series B new issue is expected to close by year-end and should suffice to capitalise the development of up to 1 gigawatt of data centre capacity, according to GDS International, which oversees the group’s operations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan.

“We are delighted with the strong investor support for our Series B new issue, which enables us to upsize and add renowned new investors to our shareholder base,” GDS International CEO Jamie Khoo said in a release. “The success of this equity raise underscores the strength of GDSI’s vision and strategy. This additional funding will enable us to accelerate our plans to create new data center markets and to deliver state-of-the-art digital infrastructure solutions.”

Investor Demand

The latest fundraise follows a Series A round earlier this year in which GDS International garnered $672 million in fresh cash from the sale of convertible preferred shares to investors including Chinese private equity major Hillhouse and its real assets arm Rava Partners, as well as Boyu, Princeville Capital and Tekne Capital.

The Series A round had originally targeted $587 million before being upsized to meet investor demand, according to GDS International.

The developer’s ex-China buildout has seen the opening of new markets in and around the Singapore-Johor-Batam cluster, which continues to attract regional and global hyperscale demand.

Mingtiandi reported in October on GDS International’s acquisition of a western Singapore warehouse from CapitaLand Ascendas REIT for S$112.8 million ($86.4 million). The deal was deemed an “interested person transaction” in light of GDS’s backing by Temasek-owned STT Global Data Centres.

News of the Singapore buy came just weeks after GDS International took over the lease of a Goodman-built data centre at a converted factory site in Hong Kong’s Tsuen Wan West area.

Bossing DigitalLand

GDS introduced Khoo as the chief executive of DigitalLand in March. She joined the GDS senior management team in 2014 as deputy chief financial officer and has served as the chief operating officer of the company since January 2019.

Her appointment as DigitalLand CEO took effect upon closing of the Series A capital raise.

The DigitalLand platform’s existing revenue-generating assets consist of an 18.2-megawatt facility in Hong Kong and the first phase of a 158.7MW campus in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, both of which are self-developed and owned.

The company also provides services for third-party data centres in Singapore, including assets owned by STT GDC.