Sixth Street, Goldman Sachs close sale of 88% stake in AirTrunk

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) and AirTrunk today announced that financial close has been reached on the acquisition of an 88 per cent stake in AirTrunk by a consortium led by Macquarie Asia Infrastructure Fund 2 (MAIF2), a MIRA-managed infrastructure fund. This investment values AirTrunk at more than $A3 billion and will accelerate its ambitious expansion across the Asia-Pacific (APAC).

AirTrunk is a best-in-class hyperscale data centre platform for large cloud, content and enterprise customers across APAC. Since the 2017 launch of its first hyperscale data centre in Western Sydney, AirTrunk has rapidly grown into a leading regional platform with facilities in Sydney (Sydney West and Sydney North), Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong, and a well-developed expansion plan in other markets. AirTrunk’s five data centres, once fully developed, will be able to deliver a combined capacity of more than 450 megawatts.

AirTrunk is building scalable and sustainable infrastructure in key APAC markets to enable the growth of cloud. Rapid population growth, digital adoption and the shift to the cloud is driving accelerated demand by cloud and content providers for hyperscale data centre solutions as offered by AirTrunk.

MIRA is one of the world’s leading alternative asset managers, and its portfolio is relied upon by more than 100 million people each day. MIRA has extensive experience in developing digital infrastructure assets and assisting management to operate them, with investments in data centres, fibre assets and telecommunication tower businesses across Europe, North America, and APAC.

The consortium, led by MAIF2 and including other MIRA-managed partners, acquired its stake in the business from Goldman Sachs, Sixth Street Partners (formerly TSSP) and founder, Robin Khuda. Mr Khuda will continue to hold a material stake in the business and will remain in his role as CEO under a long-term arrangement, supported by the existing executive management team.

Frank Kwok, Head of MIRA Asia-Pacific said: “The global data centre industry has grown significantly in recent years, driven by an exponential increase in data consumption, increasing cloud applications and the shift from internal IT infrastructure to outsourced resources. In the Asia-Pacific, this thematic is amplified by the region’s emerging economies and growing populations, leading to increasing data usage and a greater need for in-country computing workloads and storage.

“Our investors are attracted to hyperscale data centre providers such as AirTrunk because they have attributes such as long-term revenue streams and demand resilience throughout market cycles.

“We are impressed by the quality of AirTrunk’s digital infrastructure platform, its growing footprint throughout key Asia-Pacific markets, and its focus on supporting clients such as major cloud providers. This is a business with an impressive track record of execution for its customers, delivering capacity on time and on budget.”

Mr Khuda said: “AirTrunk has established itself as the dominant player in the APAC hyperscale market, rapidly growing our footprint in a disciplined way and securing a number of long-term customer commitments. The investment announced today will enable AirTrunk to continue to deliver secure, reliable and scalable infrastructure for our customers in existing and new markets.

“We look forward to working with MIRA’s expert team to usher in a new and exciting era for AirTrunk, building on the strong foundation we’ve established over the past three years. Their investment will enable us to roll out our rapidly expanding hyperscale platform across the region. MIRA’s strong track record with infrastructure investments in APAC will provide valuable experience as AirTrunk consolidates and expands its Asia-Pacific presence.”

AirTrunk was advised by: Grant Samuel, Goldman Sachs Investment Bank, DLA Piper, Norton Rose Fulbright, Hogan Lovells, KPMG and PwC. MIRA was advised by: Baker McKenzie, King & Wood Mallesons, KPMG and Macquarie Capital. Deutsche Bank was lead debt arranger, advised by Gilbert + Tobin.