Quadrant Private Equity has announced that it is going to exit the data center business and sell its stake in Canberra Data Centres (CDC) to Infratil and Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation.

Each company will purchase a 48 percent stake in CDC, with Infratil saying it will pay USD$283.5 million. The two will have equal governance rights in how the business is run. CDC founder and CEO Greg Boorer will keep a four percent stake in the company once the transaction is completed, something that is expected to happen in late July - pending Foreign Investment Review Board approval.

In new hands

Marko Bogoievski, CEO of Infratil, said that ”the acquisition of CDC provides Infratil with a meaningful exposure to the emerging data and related telecommunications infrastructure sector, which we have been following for some time.”

CDC is the largest provider of outsourced data centre co-location services to the Australian government, with Bogoievski describing it as ”a trusted partner to numerous Federal Government agencies and private sector customers.”

He added that: “CDC is well positioned to take advantage of industry tailwinds including continued growth in outsourcing, data storage and processing. We are looking forward to supporting the company in its next phase of development.”

With the construction of its fourth data centre (Hume 3), Infratil estimates CDC’s current annualised run rate of EBITDA at USD$36 million. The company expects CDC’s revenues to grow 30 percent through to full year June 2017.

“The business currently has ~30MW of capacity split across three facilities, and two data centre campuses, with two high quality greenfield development opportunities underway totalling another ~27MW of capacity. With the support of Infratil the business is better positioned than ever to grow in support of its customers over the long term,” Bogoievski said.