London, 24 October 2024 – An agreement has been reached for the sale of Global Switch Australia Holdings Ltd (“GSAH”) for A$2.12 billion to HMC Capital. The transaction enables Global Switch Holdings Limited (“Global Switch” or the “Company”) to fully realise the value of its historic economic interests in Global Switch Australia. The transaction represents a significant first step in the Company’s capital raising for future growth.
Since December 2016, GSAH has operated as a separate, standalone business, with Global Switch maintaining its historic economic interests in the business. Global Switch expects the deal to close in late 2024 or early 2025 – following the receipt of customary regulatory approvals in Australia.
Global Switch is a world-leading owner, operator and developer of large-scale data centres in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The proceeds of this transaction will strengthen the Company’s balance sheet and provide substantial further capital for Global Switch to capitalise on significant growth opportunities presenting themselves in other prime geographies through redevelopment, the integration of the latest cooling technologies, and the building of new data centres to meet burgeoning AI and high performance computing (HPC) demand.
Global Switch provides high density, low latency IT capacity, expertise and the latest technological solutions on a flexible basis to leading technology organisations across the key markets of Europe and Asia-Pacific, including the Company’s existing Tier 1 markets of London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Driven by strong customer demand, Global Switch has performed strongly in the year-to-date, capitalising on the growth of AI/HPC and meeting customer demand through its ongoing redevelopment, power densification and growth programs.
The transaction follows a number of recent deals within the global data centre market and delivers compelling economics to Global Switch. Global investors are drawn to the criticality of the data centre industry and its exposure to the growth of the most cutting-edge technologies, such as AI/HPC. Demand for data centre capacity continues to outstrip supply, particularly in the prime locations where Global Switch’s sites can be found.
Global Switch remains committed to maintaining strong investment grade credit ratings and expects these to be retained following the transaction. Consent to the transaction is required from Global Switch’s Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) and Term Loan banks, which is expected to be forthcoming, whilst GSAH and its subsidiary companies will cease to be guarantors of Global Switch’s bonds maturing in 2027 and 2030 and its RCF, all of which are otherwise unaffected by the transaction.
Ashley Muldoon, CEO of Global Switch, said: “The proceeds from the sale of our historic economic interests in GSAH will enable us to accelerate our ambitions to meet the demand for data centre capacity in our critical hubs around the world, and to continue to ensure that our customers’ needs are met as demand increases for AI and high performance computing deployments.”
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About Global Switch
Global Switch is a leading owner, operator and developer of large-scale, carrier and cloud neutral, multi-customer data centres in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Founded in 1998, Global Switch has a proven business model, demonstrable track record and is one of the highest credit rated data centre companies in the world, with investment grade credit ratings from Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings.
Global Switch is a vital strategic partner for customers that require secure and resilient data centre services with scalable capacity and a high-level of customer service. The Company's focus is on providing high power density suitable for HPC and AI deployments with both air and liquid cooled optionality, as well as highly resilient, central, low latency, network dense locations in prime city centre locations and internet hubs close to its customers on the edge of financial and business districts.
Global Switch’s data centres operate exclusively in the Tier I markets of Europe and Asia-Pacific to Tier III or higher and currently total around 428,000 sq m (4,600,000 sq ft) of floor space and are occupied by a broad range of customers, global and national, large and small, including government organisations, financial institutions, enterprises, global systems integrators, telecommunication carriers, cloud and managed service providers and other hosting businesses.
For more information visit: globalswitch.com.
