$1 Trillion Blackstone & $478 Billion Canada Pension Fund CPPIB to Buy Australia Data Centre Operator AirTrunk for $16.1 Billion from Macquarie Asset Management & Public Sector Pension Investment Board, AirTrunk Founded by Robin Khuda in Australia in 2015 and is in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong & Singapore
5th September 2024 | Hong Kong
Private equity firm Blackstone ($1 trillion AUM) & Canada Pension Fund CPPIB ($487 billion AUM) have announced to buy Australia data centre operator AirTrunk for $16.1 billion (AUD 24 billion) from Macquarie Asset Management & Public Sector Pension Investment Board. AirTrunk was founded by Robin Khuda in Australia in 2015, and has presence in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong & Singapore. Blackstone (4/9/24): “Funds managed by Blackstone Real Estate Partners, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, and Blackstone’s private equity strategy for individual investors, along with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPP Investments”), have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AirTrunk, the leading Asia Pacific data center platform, from Macquarie Asset Management and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, for an implied enterprise value of over A$24 billion. This represents Blackstone’s largest investment in the Asia Pacific region. The transaction is subject to approval from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board. AirTrunk is the largest data center platform in the Asia Pacific region, with a sizeable presence in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It has more than 800MW of capacity committed to customers and owns land that can support over 1GW of future growth across the region.”
“ $1 Trillion Blackstone & $478 Billion Canada Pension Fund CPPIB to Buy Australia Data Centre Operator AirTrunk for $16.1 Billion from Macquarie Asset Management & Public Sector Pension Investment Board, AirTrunk Founded by Robin Khuda in Australia in 2015 and is in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong & Singapore “
Sean Klimczak, Global Head of Blackstone Infrastructure & Nadeem Meghji, Global Co-Head of Blackstone Real Estate: “Digital infrastructure is experiencing unprecedented demand driven by the AI revolution as well as the broader digitization of the economy. Prior to AirTrunk, Blackstone’s portfolio consisted of US$55 billion of data centers including facilities under construction, along with over US$70 billion in prospective pipeline development. 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: “This transaction evidences the strength of the AirTrunk platform in a strong performing sector as we capture the next wave of growth from cloud services and AI and support 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.”
Max Biagosch, Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Real Assets & Head of Europe for CPP Investments: “CPP Investments has invested in the Asia Pacific data centre sector for several years, and we have witnessed significant growth in this space, fueled by a strong demand for digital infrastructure and, more recently, the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence. We have built up strong sector expertise and are excited about the opportunities presented by data centres globally. We are delighted to partner with Blackstone and the AirTrunk management team to continue growing the business. This investment represents another milestone in our broader data centre strategy, further enhancing our footprint in the region to the benefit of CPP contributors and beneficiaries. It is also a great example of close collaboration across the Fund, with our Infrastructure and Real Estate teams working together seamlessly to underwrite this investment.”
AirTrunk – AirTrunk is a hyperscale data centre specialist creating a platform for cloud, content and large enterprise customers across the Asia-Pacific & Japan (APJ) region. We develop and operate data centre campuses with industry leading reliability, technology innovation and energy and water efficiency. Our unique capabilities, designs and construction methodologies allow us to provide customers with a scalable and sustainable data centre solution at a significantly lower build and operating cost than the market.
CPP Investments – Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments™) is a professional investment management organization that manages the Fund in the best interest of the more than 22 million contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan. In order to build diversified portfolios of assets, investments are made around the world in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York City, San Francisco, São Paulo and Sydney, CPP Investments is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm’s length from governments. At June 30, 2024, the Fund totalled C$646.8 billion.
Blackstone – Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which we invest. Our more than US$1 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, credit, real assets, secondaries and hedge funds. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com.
$1 Trillion Blackstone & $478 Billion Canada Pension Fund CPPIB to Buy Australia Data Centre Operator AirTrunk for $16.1 Billion from Macquarie Asset Management & Public Sector Pension Investment Board, AirTrunk Founded by Robin Khuda in Australia in 2015 and is in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong & Singapore
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