Blackstone to Acquire Data Centre Leader AirTrunk
Financial services giant Blackstone has entered into an agreement to acquire AirTrunk, an Asia-Pacific & Japan data centre company.
The definitive agreement to acquire AirTrunk from Macquarie Asset Management and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, was for an implied enterprise value of over AU$24bn (US$16bn).
Funds were managed by:
- Blackstone Real Estate Partners
- Blackstone Infrastructure Partners
- Blackstone Tactical Opportunities
- Blackstone’s private equity strategy for individual investors
- The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
This is Blackstone’s largest investment in the Asia Pacific region and is subject to approval from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board.
AirTrunk has grown from a Sydney startup to a APAC data centre leader, while Blackstone has evolved from an advisory firm to #495 in Forbes’ Global 2000
AirTrunk was founded in 2014 and is based in Sydney, Australia and was acquired by Macquarie Group in 2020. AirTrunk operates large-scale wholesale data centres, with campuses in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. AirTrunk’s goal is to provide top-tier reliability, alongside energy and water efficiency. Its construction methods aim to run sustainable data centre solutions. AirTrunk has over 800MW of capacity committed to customers and owns land that can support over 1GW of future growth.
Blackstone started out in 1985 as a boutique M&A advisory firm and went on to quickly launch its first private equity fund. By 1990 it had branched out into hedge funds using partners’ own money. By the time of Blackstone’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2007, the business had more than US$88bn’s worth of assets under management. The IPO saw shares finish at over US$35 each, valuing the firm at about US$39bn.
Now, Blackstone is capitalising on the building of new data centre facilities as a leading investor globally, as well as in addressing the data centre sector’s power needs.
Blackstone boosts global data centre leadership with AirTrunk acquisition amid rising AI demand
“This is Blackstone at its best – leveraging our global platform to capitalise on our highest conviction theme,” said Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone. “AirTrunk is another vital step as Blackstone seeks to be the leading digital infrastructure investor in the world across the ecosystem, including data centres, power and related services.”
Sean Klimczak, Global Head of Blackstone Infrastructure and Nadeem Meghji, Global Co-Head of Blackstone Real Estate shared how the AI revolution is causing digital infrastructure to experience unprecedented demand.
“Prior to AirTrunk, Blackstone’s portfolio consisted of US$55bn of data centres including facilities under construction, along with over US$70bn in prospective pipeline development,” they said. “We look forward to partnering with the outstanding AirTrunk management team to further accelerate its growth.”
Robin Khuda, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AirTrunk, said that this transaction evidences the strength of the AirTrunk platform, as the company captures the next wave of growth from cloud services and AI and supports the energy transition in Asia Pacific.
“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,” said Robin.
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