Brookfield, Canadian pension fund to buy Compass Datacenters

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP

20/06/2023 17:01

June 20 (Reuters) - Privately held Compass Datacenters
will be sold to a consortium led by Brookfield Infrastructure
Partners LP  BIP.N  and existing investor Ontario Teachers'
Pension Plan for an undisclosed sum, the data center operator
said on Tuesday.
    The deal has an enterprise value of about $5.5 billion,
according to a person familiar with the matter. 
    Reuters reported last month that Brookfield and
DigitalBridge Group Inc  DBRG.N  were battling it out in the
auction for Compass, whose owners also include RedBird Capital
Partners and the Azrieli Group.    
    Dealmaking in the data center sector has spiked in recent
years as rapid growth fueled by cloud computing has attracted
large infrastructure investors, while the fragmented nature of
the industry has driven consolidation.
    In April, Brookfield snapped up a majority stake in Data4 in
a deal that valued the data center operator at close to 3.5
billion euros ($3.8 billion) including debt, Reuters reported.
    "The need for data storage continues to grow at an
exponential rate across the globe, and Compass complements our
existing platforms in South America, Europe and Asia Pacific,"
said Sam Pollock, CEO of Brookfield Infrastructure.
    Compass founder and CEO Chris Crosby, along with the current
management team, will continue to lead the company after the
deal's expected close by 2023-end.    
    Goldman Sachs, Guggenheim Securities and Deutsche Bank
Securities advised Compass and RedBird. BMO Capital Markets and
Scotiabank advised Brookfield Infrastructure, while TD
Securities was the advisor to Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.
    

 (Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika
Syamnath)
 ((yuvraj.malik@thomsonreuters.com;))