Dutch telco KPN has agreed to sell its data center division, NLDC, to a fund managed by DWS, a global infrastructure investment manager and part of Deutsche Bank.

NLDC consists of six colocation data centers in Aalsmeer, Almere, Eindhoven, Groningen, Oude Meer (Schiphol) and Rotterdam. Terms of the deal were not discussed.

Dutch data centers

KPN created NLDC as a subsidiary two years ago, and is believed to have been looking to sell the division for some time. At least one of the data centers was built by Digital Realty, which bought a building in Groningen from KPN in 2013, turned the site into a data center, and then leased it back to KPN. 

The sale of the six sites to DWS is subject to the usual closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Once the deal closes, KPN will continue to deliver its core ICT services from NLDC data centers, as well as use public cloud services like AWS and Azure.

Back in 2016, KPN won DCD’s Sustainable Data Center Award for the USE program, an energy efficiency measure which saves the company 1.6MWh of energy per year.

Backup diesel generators have to be kept warm at all times, so they are ready for use when there is an interruption to the mains power. Usually they are preheated by electric heaters, but KPN’s data centers have dispensed with this, and instead use the waste heat from the data center itself.