Yondr Group has partnered with asset management Apollo Global Management.
The data center developer this week announced it has agreed to a ‘strategic relationship partnership’ that will see Apollo invest in Yondr.
Owned by single-family investment office Cathexis, Yondr said Apollo’s investment will bolster its strategic growth plan and facilitate the continued build-out of its portfolio.
Terms of the deal were not shared, though Apollo’s own announcement described it as a “significant capital commitment.”
“Apollo’s support of our global growth ambitions is truly exciting for us at Yondr,” said Paul Cossell, CEO at Yondr Group. “This allows us to create long-term sustainable value for clients, and to rapidly deploy cloud solutions, in line with the growing demands of our select, blue-chip client base.”
The announcement is Yondr’s first mention of Cossell as CEO. David Newitt had been CEO since 2019. Both were previously at Cathexis-owned engineering firm ISG before some of the business was transferred to Yondr in 2019; Cossell left that year to take the helm at the data center firm, with Cossell stepping down as CEO at ISG in 2021 after five years. According to the WaybackMachine, Newitt’s profile was taken off theYondr’s website sometime after November 2022, with Cossell added only recently.
Apollo Partners Trevor Mills and Andrew Kirby added: “We are delighted to work with Yondr Group. With our support, Yondr can develop innovative, sustainable infrastructure solutions and meet the growing needs of an increasingly data-driven world.”
Apollo will be working alongside Yondr to provide “advice and expertise” as part of a long-term relationship. Simpson Thacher & Barlett LP served as legal advisor to the Apollo Funds. White & Case LLP served as legal advisor to Yondr.
Dylan Foo, head of global infrastructure at Apollo, said: “We believe this transaction demonstrates our ability to navigate complexity amid continued economic uncertainty and structure an attractive, tailored investment which supports the needs of both Yondr and Apollo Funds. We look forward to supporting Yondr’s continued expansion while pursuing the high-growth secular trend of global cloud adoption.”
Yondr has delivered more than 450MW of built capacity across Europe since 2011. The company aims to deliver data centers across five continents by 2024, and has projects currently under development in markets including Virginia, London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Indonesia, Malaysia, and multiple cities in India amongst others. The company broke ground on a data center in Bischofsheim outside Frankfurt in March.
Apollo said Yondr currently owns and operates a hyperscale data center in the Netherlands, with four additional sites in construction across Europe and the United States expected to come online between 2024 and 2025, all of which are fully contracted with "large, investment-grade counterparties."
Apollo previously acquired and floated service provider Rackspace, acquired Yahoo! in 2021 from Verizon, and recently sold tower firm Parallel Infrastructure to Harmoni Towers.
