AustralianSuper Backs Vantage Data Centers with €1.5 Billion Investment and Joins DigitalBridge as Key Shareholder
MELBOURNE, Australia, BOCA RATON, Fla. and DENVER – September 11, 2023 – AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest pension fund, today announced that it is investing €1.5 billion to acquire a significant minority stake in Vantage Data Centers Europe, Middle East and Africa (Vantage EMEA), a DigitalBridge-sponsored company. DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (NYSE: DBRG) (“DigitalBridge”), is a leading global alternative asset manager dedicated to investing in digital infrastructure.
AustralianSuper will be a key shareholder in Vantage EMEA, one of the fastest growing hyperscale data center platforms in the region. Together, AustralianSuper and DigitalBridge-sponsored vehicles will support Vantage’s expansion and development of hyperscale data centers across EMEA, utilizing the company’s campus model to drive accelerated time to market while building on its longstanding customer relationships, track record of growth and next-generation infrastructure capabilities.
The investment, which represents AustralianSuper’s first significant exposure in hyperscale data centers, provides AustralianSuper with access to an attractive market with strong growth prospects.
Nik Kemp, Head of Infrastructure at AustralianSuper, said, “The Vantage EMEA platform is at an exciting point in its history, with a strong pipeline of developments in growing markets across the region. We look forward to working with DigitalBridge and Vantage EMEA to continue to support the rapid growth of its customers while also delivering on our purpose to help more than 3.2 million members achieve their best financial position in retirement. 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.”
Jon Mauck, Senior Managing Director at DigitalBridge who leads DigitalBridge’s data center investment strategy, said, “We are delighted to welcome AustralianSuper as an investor to EMEA’s premier data center platform. Vantage, led by an experienced management team, has a track record of success and is aligned with the long-term growth of cloud demand and the need for AI infrastructure. Digital infrastructure continues to demonstrate its resilience as an asset class, and we look forward to building on our track record as we become a partner of choice to Australian investors seeking to increase their exposure to high-quality digital infrastructure investments.”
Sureel Choksi, President and CEO of Vantage Data Centers, said, “As data center 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 center footprint across the region and further deepen our relationships with customers as we enable them to grow and scale their businesses with reliable, efficient and sustainable data centers. We look forward to partnering with AustralianSuper and supporting our customers’ continued growth."
Since entering the EMEA market in February 2020, Vantage EMEA has expanded to six countries and established its presence in some of the region’s most important financial and commercial hubs, including Frankfurt and Berlin, Germany; Milan, Italy; Warsaw, Poland; Johannesburg, South Africa; Zurich, Switzerland; and Cardiff, United Kingdom. Most recently, Vantage EMEA announced its entry into the London market with 75MW of IT capacity across two campuses. Vantage EMEA has a strong focus on environmental sustainability and is committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030.
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to customary closing conditions.
About AustralianSuper
AustralianSuper is Australia’s largest pension fund, managing more than €180 billion in members’ retirement savings on behalf of more than 3.2 million members from more than 448,000 businesses (as at 30 June 2023). AustralianSuper has a more than €24 billion infrastructure portfolio invested primarily in developed markets, targeting large direct ownership stakes across the infrastructure spectrum. AustralianSuper has a long history of astute investment in high quality Australian and global infrastructure assets such as Peel Ports (United Kingdom), Transurban Chesapeake (US), Indara Digital Infrastructure, Transurban Queensland, NSW Ports, WestConnex, and Sydney Airport (Australia).
About Vantage Data Centers
Vantage Data Centers powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world’s well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across five continents in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands.
About DigitalBridge
DigitalBridge (NYSE: DBRG) is a leading global alternative asset manager dedicated to investing in digital infrastructure. With a heritage of over 25 years investing in and operating businesses across the digital ecosystem including cell towers, data centers, fiber, small cells and edge infrastructure, the DigitalBridge team manages over $70 billion of digital infrastructure assets on behalf of its limited partners and shareholders. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, DigitalBridge has key offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Luxembourg and Singapore. For more information, visit: www.digitalbridge.com.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to expectations, beliefs, projections, future plans and strategies, anticipated events or trends and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," or "potential" or the negative of these words and phrases or similar words or phrases which are predictions of or indicate future events or trends and which do not relate solely to historical matters. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, and may cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed in any forward-looking statement. Factors that might cause such a difference include whether the transaction will close on the anticipated time frame, the ability of the Vantage EMEA platform to continue to grow and scale, and other risks and uncertainties, including those detailed in DigitalBridge’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2023 and June 30, 2023, and its other reports filed from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements reflect DigitalBridge’s good faith beliefs, assumptions and expectations, but they are not guarantees of future performance. DigitalBridge cautions investors not to unduly rely on any forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. DigitalBridge is under no duty to update any of these forward-looking statements after the date of this press release, nor to conform prior statements to actual results or revised expectations, and DigitalBridge does not intend to do so.
Media Contacts
AustralianSuper - UK
Montfort
Olly Scott / Georgia Colkin
australiansuper@montfort.london
+44 (0)78 1234 5205
AustralianSuper - Australia
Stephen McMahon, Senior Manager Media Relations
smcmahon@australiansuper.com
+61 407-507-415
Vantage Data Centers
Mark Freeman
+1-202-680-4243
DigitalBridge
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
Jon Keehner / Kara Brickman / Sarah Salky
dbrg-jf@joelefrank.com
+1-212-355-4449