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The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, has partnered with Singapore’s SC Capital Partners (SCCP), a private equity real-estate firm, to set up a data centre investment strategy that could reach $2 billion in equity.
The programme targets data centre investments across the Asia Pacific region with a focus on Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia, SC Capital said on Wednesday in a release. ADIA is also investing in SC Capital’s pan-Asian opportunistic investment strategy fund, according to a statement.
SC Zeus Data Centres, a pan-Asian platform developed by SCCP in February will be the operating partner for the investment programme.
ADIA is estimated to manage some $708 billion in assets. Its 20-year and 30-year annualised rates of return - on a point-to-point basis - were both 7.3% at the end of last year, up from a 20-year rate of 6% and 30-year rate of 7.2% in 2020.
SCCP has a 18-year track record across Asia Pacific and has raised approximately $2.9 billion in equity commitments from a diverse pool of institutional investors across five closed-end opportunistic funds and one open-end core-plus fund, according to its website.
Globally, spending by end users on global data center infrastructure is projected to reach $200 billion in 2022.
Investments in the Southeast Asia data center market are skyrocketing across all countries. As of Q1 2022, the market included around 200 operational colocation centers supporting a total IT load of over 1 GW, with around 50 upcoming facilities likely to operate by 2025. In Southeast Asia, Singapore is the leading market for investments. However, owing to the moratorium imposed on data centers by the Singapore government in 2020, investments in neighboring countries, especially Indonesia and Malaysia, have been strong, according to Research and Markets.
RationalStat’s analysis noted that the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) data center is estimated at $3.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $10.4 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 20.4% from 2022 to 2028.
Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala is considering buying a stake in private equity firm EQT AB’s fiber network operator GlobalConnect, a deal that could value business at $7 billion.
(Reporting by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)
