The first stage of the recapitalisation is comprised of the sale of ownership interests to affiliates of Swiss Life Asset Management AG (SLAM) and EDF Invest (EDF).
Under the terms of the agreement, SLAM and EDF will acquire a 27% equity interests in DataBank for approximately $1.2 billion in cash.
“Since we acquired DataBank in 2016, we have scaled its footprint, capacity and customer base in key metro areas across the United States, transforming DataBank from a business serving three markets with six facilities to the premier edge infrastructure platform serving twenty-seven markets across more than sixty-five facilities," said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge.
"The formation of this new permanent capital vehicle allows DigitalBridge shareholders to maintain significant exposure to the next phase of value creation at DataBank alongside our new co-investors while also freeing up significant capital at an attractive valuation to fuel additional digital M&A.”
Once this first stage of the recapitalisation is completed, DigitalBridge’s ownership stake DataBank will be reduced to 15.5% with the company to receive $230 million in cash proceeds, indicating pre-transaction net value of approximately $906 million.
“This transaction will catalyse the next phase of DataBank’s growth with a new group of marquee investors poised to benefit from the continued powerful infrastructure expansion at the edge and DigitalBridge’s track record and expertise investing across the digital infrastructure ecosystem,” added Ganzi.
The next stages of the recapitalisation will likely include incremental new investors acquiring ownership interests in DataBank, completion of the recapitalisation is expected to complete in Q4 2022.
The transactions are subject to various closing conditions, including required regulatory approvals.
“This recapitalisation allows us to accelerate our expansion efforts and capture the substantial secular growth in edge computing,” said Raul Martynek, CEO of DataBank.
“DataBank is strategically positioned as the leading platform to deliver and enable the network edge ecosystem as a shift from traditional centralised infrastructures continues to evolve to the edge.”
