Investment firm InfraVia is to acquire a 50 percent stake in French telco Iliad’s data center unit.
The Xavier Niel-owned Iliad Group and InfraVia this week announced the two companies have entered into exclusive discussions to form a partnership aimed at “developing OpCore into a major European hyperscale data center platform.”
As part of the deal, InfraVia, through its infrastructure funds, will acquire a 50 percent equity stake in OpCore, which is valued at an enterprise value of €860 million ($903.4m). The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2025.
Thomas Reynaud, CEO of the Iliad Group, said: “The Iliad Group’s ambition is Europe-wide. Together with our partner InfraVia, we plan to invest more than €2.5 billion into making OpCore the leading independent data center platform in Europe.”
OpCore was formed last year after Iliad separated its data center business from its Scaleway cloud unit. According to the report, the company has six data centers across Paris, one each in Lyon and Marseille, and seven in Poland. The portfolio totals around 131MW, including in-development projects.
Arnaud de Bermingham, CEO of OpCore, added: “At OpCore, we are seeing unprecedented growth in the capacity demands expressed by hyperscaler and AI customers. Our experience, track record, and unique technologies are key assets in a radically changing data center industry. As a co-founder of OpCore leading the company for 20 years, I am very proud of the milestones and value creation achieved with the team and I am excited about the huge opportunities ahead. I am convinced that Iliad and InfraVia are the perfect shareholders to support Opcore on our ambitious growth plans.”
The new partnership will reportedly give OpCore the “right financial structure,” with dedicated financing that will cover up to 75 percent of OpCore’s investment needs with bank debt.
The companies said the financing will enable OpCore to scale to more than 130MW through the development of a c.100MW data center in the Paris region, and then to “multiple hundreds of megawatts” across Europe. Scaleway is set to remain a major tenant of OpCore’s sites.
According to Bloomberg, the expansion will target where Iliad operates as a telecoms carrier, namely France, Poland, and Italy.
Reports that Iliad was looking for an investment partner for OpCore surfaced earlier this year – with InfraVia listed as a potential suitor alongside Antin Infrastructure, Morrison. Iliad has previously said it aims to invest €2.5 billion ($2.71bn) in organic developments, in partnership with an external investor, and hinted that it would invest in “opportunistic M&A.”
Vincent Levita, founder and CEO of InfraVia, said: “We are extremely pleased to expand our partnership with Iliad through our investment in OpCore. This transaction draws on all our experience in hyperscale data center development. Data centers have become an essential digital infrastructure that is experiencing high demand and requiring significant investments. We are proud to join forces with Iliad and contribute to shaping a major hyperscale data center operator in Europe.”
InfraVia is a European private equity firm specializing in assets such as infrastructure, critical metals, real estate, and technology. The company previously acquired NGD in Wales 2016, and sold it to Vantage in 2020.
InfraVia also owns Swiss operator Green, which it acquired from Altice in 2017; reports from earlier this year suggest Green may be up for sale.
The firm has also invested in and/or exited Adtim, Cignal, Celeste, Etix Everywhere, Fibre Networks Ireland, Hello Fiber, IFT, Nexfibre, and PSO.
PSO and IFT, in Poland and France respectively, are fiber companies launched in partnership with Iliad.
OpCore’s Paris sites were inherited from Scaleway, while the Lyon and Marseille sites were likely inherited from Iliad-owned MSP Jaguar Network (now known as Free Pro). The Polish sites were taken from Iliad’s Play/3S units.
Scaleway – formerly Online SAS/Online.net – was founded as a hosting company in 1999. The company launched a colocation division after acquiring Alice ADSL from Telecom Italia’s French unit in 2008.
The data center unit can trace its roots back to ISDnet in 1999. The company was first bought by Cable & Wireless in 2000, then Tiscali France in 2003. Tiscali’s French operations were then sold to Telecom Italia’s French subsidiary Alice in 2005, before being bought by Iliad three years later.
