The deal is valued at $2.5 billion, which assumes an enterprise value of $10.5 billion for American Tower's US data centre business.
Once the transaction is completed American Tower will retain managerial and operational control, as well as day-to-day oversight of the US data centre business, and Stonepeak will gain certain governance rights.
"We are pleased to partner with Stonepeak in our U.S. data centre business, where we expect to create value through growth in our highly interconnected, cloud on-ramp rich portfolio of data centre assets," said Tom Bartlett, president and chief executive officer, American Tower.
"In Stonepeak, we’ve found a like-minded partner, with deep communications infrastructure experience and a long-term investment philosophy that aligns with the principles of American Tower and our longer-term strategy in the data centres segment. While this transaction supports the equity financing component for our previously completed CoreSite acquisition, it also creates a platform through which growth opportunities can be strategically evaluated and financed, with American Tower and Stonepeak committed to executing on opportunities as the 5G ecosystem continues to develop.”
The news comes in line with Stonepeak's core infrastructure strategy and will position American Tower and Stonepeak to benefit from the demand for low-latency, hybrid IT solutions and flexible interconnection across the data centre campuses.
The portfolio is comprised of 27 data centres across 10 US markets, more than 450 networks, 23 native cloud on-ramps and over 35,000 interconnections.
“American Tower has established one of the premier network dense, interconnection-focused data centre platforms in the US through CoreSite and previous acquisitions, which we view as a great fit for our core infrastructure strategy," added Andrew Thomas, managing director and co-head of communications at Stonepeak.
"The platform is strategically positioned to be at the forefront of the continued shift from a traditional centralised infrastructure model to a cloud-based, connected and distributed digital infrastructure model and we are excited to partner with the American Tower team to help accelerate investment behind this trend in the years to come.”
Subject to customary closing conditions, the transaction is due to close in the third quarter of 2022.
