Macquarie Capital announces strategic partnership with Prime Data Centers

Macquarie Capital, the advisory, capital markets and principal investment arm of Macquarie Group, today announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with and made an equity investment in Prime Data Centers, a California-based wholesale data center developer and operator with several existing facilities and a robust pipeline of data center projects throughout the Americas and Europe.

Macquarie Capital will lend its infrastructure investing and development capabilities, along with its growing expertise in the digital ecosystem to Prime’s expertise in delivering and servicing data center infrastructure solutions to enterprise and hyperscale companies. The partnership has targeted capital investments in excess of $US5 billion over the next 10 years.

Corporations and other institutions are increasingly relying on data centers to house critical applications amid continued exponential growth in data globally. The global data center colocation and interconnection market is estimated to be worth $US53.9 billion and projects at a compound annual growth rate of 11.4 per cent, according to Structure Research.

“Data centers are a critical component of the digital infrastructure system and innovative developers such as Prime are positioned to deliver flexible, strategic solutions that data-reliant companies need more than ever,” said Mark Bradshaw head of Infrastructure Investment and Development for Europe & Americas at Macquarie Capital. “With this partnership and investment, Macquarie Capital can leverage its green energy platform, financial capabilities and its global digital infrastructure experience to help Prime Data Centers accelerate the development of a promising project pipeline of 400MW and drive long-term growth.”               

The CEO and founder of Prime, Nicholas Laag, said of the partnership: “Macquarie Capital is an excellent fit for us, not only because of the strategic nature that is truly unique and a potential paradigm shift in solving for the delivery of sustainable mission critical infrastructure on demand at whatever capacity, but also because of their long-term investment horizon to really scale and leverage our mutual assets and people. We are planning for 10 and 20 years and not only one, three or five years, which we believe will align well with customers.”

This investment is being led by specialists within Macquarie Capital’s Infrastructure Investment and Development team that focus on asset creation and stabilization opportunities within the broader digital infrastructure ecosystem, including towers, data centers, fiber, small cells and other related digital infrastructure assets. This team invests balance sheet capital to sponsor, develop and grow landmark projects that create new digital, transport and social infrastructure.

Macquarie Capital currently has over $US25 billion of infrastructure projects under construction or development and is an industry leader across transportation, social, communications, renewable energy, and conventional energy infrastructure. Recent digital infrastructure transactions include the launch of last-mile fiber provider Accelecom, an investment in UK rural superfast broadband business Voneus Limited, and the acquisition of MasMovil’s Fibre-to-the-Home network in Spain.