AustralianSuper is to acquire a “significant minority” stake in Vantage Data Centers Europe, Middle East and Africa (Vantage EMEA), an offshoot of US alternative manager DigitalBridge Group Inc, for 1.5 billion euros (US$1.61 billion).
The investment is AustralianSuper’s first exposure to hyperscale data centres. It will provide the fund with access to an “attractive market with strong growth prospects”, AustralianSuper says in a statement on September 11.
“The Vantage EMEA platform will complement our existing digital infrastructure investments and this acquisition represents an important step for the fund as we build out our infrastructure capability in Europe,” says Nik Kemp, head of infrastructure at AustralianSuper, in the statement.
“As data centre demand continues to rapidly accelerate across EMEA, this investment will fuel Vantage’s ability to accelerate the growth of our environmentally friendly, large-scale data centre footprint across the region,” Sureel Choksi, president and chief executive officer of Vantage Data Centers, comments.
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to customary closing conditions.
Melbourne-based AustralianSuper is Australia’s largest pension fund with $193 billion of assets under management as of June 2023.
Florida-based DigitalBridge manages over $70 billion of digital infrastructure assets.