Blackstone Inc., which manages more than $1 trillion in assets, and the investment arm of Canada Pension Plan have agreed to acquire Macquarie Group Ltd. and PSP Investments of Australian data center operator AirTrunk for AU$24 billion ($16.1 billion). The deal is currently awaiting regulatory approval from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board. This is one of the largest digital infrastructure deals this year.
According to Bloomberg, the deal covers the acquired company’s debt obligations and capital expenditure obligations for the construction of planned data centers. This is Blackstone’s largest acquisition in the Asia-Pacific region in the company’s history. The company was the top bidder, beating out rivals including DigitalBridge Group Inc., Global Infrastructure Partners, IFM Investors Pty and Silver Lake Management. Prior to this, the largest deal in the region was Blackstone’s purchase of Australian casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd. in 2022 for AU$8.9 billion (about $6 billion).
Image source: Scott Graham/unsplash.com
AirTrunk operates data centers in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Malaysia. The investment arm of Macquarie Group took control of the company in 2020 in a deal valued at AU$3 billion. Previously, the company was owned by a group of investors, including a special purpose unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Blackstone already has a data center portfolio worth more than $55 billion and is actively developing it – the company intends to spend another $70 billion on this line of business.
In recent years, assets such as data centers, mobile towers and fiber optic networks have become in demand among investors as they provide stable returns and have high growth prospects as humanity becomes more dependent on technology.