TWO DATA CENTERS FOR AU$417 MILLION

Real estate investment trust (REIT) Centuria Industrial, has just bought a data center site in Melbourne from Australian telecommunications company Telstra for AU$417 million (US$300 million).

The 3.2 hectare site contains two data centers, an older 6.6MW data center which was opened in 2014 and the new 6.1MW data center facility. Also containing eight other buildings, the site is about 25km from the central business district of Melbourne.

As announced, Telstra is keeping the IT equipment in the data center and will continue its operation as a tenant under a 30-year lease-back agreement which gives two additional 10-year extension options. Telstra intends to use the funds realized from this transaction in line with its T22 restructuring program.

“Data centers are an incredibly important part of the digital ecosystem and we continue to own and operate world-leading facilities in Australia and oversea,” said Andrew Penn, CEO of Telstra.

“As part of T22, we have an ambition to monetize up to $2 billion worth of assets to strengthen our balance sheet. This deal means we have now reached over $1.5 billion.”

The Melbourne data center asset has been up for sale since May this year, and Centuria has come out as the highest bidder to outrun rivals in signing the deal, including AMP Capital, Lendlease, Charter Hall, and Dexus. Centuria raising is at $3.15 per share, which was a 4.8 percent discount to the last close.

It is also reported that Centuria Industrial REIT launched an AU$341 million rights issue to finance the purchase of the data center property. The deal was underwritten by JPMorgan and the real estate team of UBS.

This is not the first data center property that Telstra is selling out this year. In April, the company sold its 7.3MW data center located in Paya Lebar, Singapore to a Hong Kong based data center service provider Big Data Exchange (BDx).