Global investment firm Actis to acquire 11 data centres

Leading global investment firm​​​​​​​ Actis has announced it has agreed to acquire 11 data centres across six countries in Latin America and the US from Nabiax, a European data center operator owned by Asterion Industrial Partners and Telefonica.

According to an announcement, Asterion Industrial Partners, which acquired Telefonica’s Data Centre assets four years ago, will continue to own, operate and grow the European assets, while Actis will be the new owners of the data centres in the Americas, based in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and a small exposure in the US in Florida. The 11 locations have a combined IT load capacity of 23 MW with the potential to expand.

The assets were originally built by Telefonica for both their own operations and for their own clients, and the company remains an anchor tenant under a long-term contract.

This transaction is Actis’ seventh investment in the digital infrastructure industry, with over US$1billion currently committed in the sector, and complements Actis’ five existing data centre platforms in Asia and Africa.

Growing Latin America data centre sector

The Latin American data centre sector market is forecast to grow by 2.5x over the next 5 years driven by the continued expansion in data creation and consumption, adoption of cloud computing and storage, outsourced co-location trends, big data and artificial intelligence.

Mauricio Giusti, Partner in Actis’ Sao Paulo office, said: “We are delighted to deepen our footprint in the digital infrastructure sector with the acquisition of these anchor assets for our pan-Latam Data Centre platform. We are also excited to partner with Telefonica in the region as a key customer of the platform, while also positioning the data centres as carrier neutral facilities. Data centres are crucial in connecting communities, enabling economic growth, and in providing access to information and education.”

Adrian Mucalov, Partner and Head of Long Life Infrastructure at Actis, added: “This is an exciting transaction reflecting Actis’ position as a global infrastructure investor. We will leverage Actis’ expertise in the energy sector to drive energy efficiencies (PUE) and to increase the use of renewable energy powering the data centres. Investing into an established, resilient business with a strong long term position fits well with our strategy.”