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A consortium of investors led by Blackstone has entered into an agreement to acquire Australian-headquartered data centre specialist AirTrunk for an implied enterprise value of over $24 billion.
This will see ownership move from Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) and The Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) to the consortium, which also includes the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), in a move that Blackstone said is its largest investment in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region to date.
Under MAM and PSP Investments, which has held a majority stake in AirTrunk since 2020, the specialist has expanded to 11 sites in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Malaysia, with capacity grown from 450 megawatts to over 1.8 gigawatts.
“The AirTrunk story is one of genuine partnership between MAM, PSP Investments and AirTrunk’s world class team,” said MAM co-head of infrastructure for APAC Ani Satchcroft. “Our journey with AirTrunk, and the drive and foresight of our teams in Asia Pacific, has resulted in AirTrunk expanding its footprint across key markets in the region, achieving a more than eightfold increase in contracted capacity.
As part of the deal, AirTrunk founder and CEO Robin Khuda will also realise part of his stake.
ARN understands that all employees will stay with the business under the new ownership, including Khuda.
“This transaction evidences the strength of the AirTrunk platform in a strong performing sector as we capture the next wave of growth from cloud services and AI and support the energy transition in Asia Pacific,” Khuda said.
“We look forward to working with Blackstone and CPP Investments and benefitting from their scale capital, sector expertise and valuable network across the various local markets, which will help support the continued expansion of AirTrunk.”
In a joint statement, Sean Klimczak, global head of Blackstone Infrastructure and Nadeem Meghji, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate said the investment firm looks “look forward to partnering with the outstanding AirTrunk management team to further accelerate its growth”.
The agreement however is not yet fully completed as it is subject to approval from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board.
Blackstone is the parent company of IDG Inc. and its Foundry brands, including ARN.