PLANS 10-YEAR EDGE PORTFOLIO EXPANSION

Data center provider DataBank, has just announced the onboarding of a new investor consortium for recapitalization, led by Swiss Life Asset Management AG (SLAM), EDF Invest and DigitalBridge.

While DigitalBridge is a current DataBank investor, the initial stage of the recapitalization is being setup as a sale of ownership interests with SLAM and EDF acquiring 27% of the fully diluted equity interests in DataBank from existing investors for $1.2 billion.

“This recapitalization allows us to accelerate our expansion efforts and capture the substantial secular growth in edge computing which we believe will be at multi-gigawatt opportunity,” said Raul K. Martynek, CEO of DataBank.

“DataBank is strategically positioned as the leading platform to deliver geographically distributed colocation and interconnect edge solutions, as the shift from traditional centralized infrastructures continues to evolve to the edge.”

As announced, this recapitalization transaction will enable DataBank to execute a 10-year plan that focuses on edge infrastructure growth in the U.S. Prior to the completion of this transaction which is slated for the third quarter of 2022, the company also expects the recapitalization to bring-in additional new investors acquiring ownership interests in DataBank.

“Since we led the acquisition of DataBank in 2016, we have scaled DataBank’s footprint, capacity and customer base in key metro areas across the United States, transforming DataBank from a business serving three markets with six facilities to the premier domestic edge infrastructure platform serving twenty-seven markets across more than sixty-five facilities,” said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge.

“This transaction will catalyze the next phase of DataBank’s growth with a new group of marquis investors poised to benefit from the continued powerful infrastructure expansion at the edge and DigitalBridge’s track record and expertise investing across the digital infrastructure ecosystem.”

Few weeks earlier, DataBank announced its acquisition of an 18-acre land parcel and an existing data center facility located at 200 Selig Drive in suburban Atlanta, Georgia.