NextDC profit fueled by work-from-home arrangements

Rising demand for cloud computing due to work-from-home arrangements, Zoom meetings and streaming has seen NextDC shares surge which has helped make its CEO richer.

Nextdc boss Craig Scroggie. Picture: Mark Cranitch

The pandemic has been an unexpected boon for Craig Scroggie and his Brisbane data centre operator NextDC. Rising demand for cloud computing due to work-from-home arrangements, Zoom meetings and streaming has seen NextDC shares sure more than 60 per cent since January 2020.

Scroggie tells your diarist that work-from-home arrangements are here to stay in some form, guaranteeing more customers for NextDC’s growing network of data centres around the country. Scroggie sold 1.6m shares for $21.7m in September and still holds 1.3m shares and performance rights worth around $14.4m at the $10.69 closing price for NextDC shares on Friday. The stock was trading around $6.55 at the start of January 2020.

NextDC booked a 29 per cent jump in profit to $85m on Thursday. Clients including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and international investment banks are migrating more services to the cloud with NextDC now planning a big international expansion.

Nextdc boss Craig Scroggie has seen the value of his data centre company surge by billions of dollars as demand for streaming services and other online services surge during the pandemic shutdown. Pic Mark Cranitch.

Scroggie says the company is planning data centres in key Asian markets - including Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.

“Asia is booming with technologies actually skipping generations,” says Scroggie. NextDC also is rolling out new data centres in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Darwin.

Scroggie says he sees continuing growth in the business as companies close down their own legacy data centres and migrate to the cloud.

MILES AHEAD

A few heads were being scratched at the last minute addition of Deputy Premier Steven Miles as the speaker to introduce Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest at the Queensland Media Club lunch yesterday.

Our spies tell us Twiggy’s speech about his big investment in hydrogen in Queensland was being rewritten at the last moment due to the developing Russia-Ukraine conflict and to accommodate Miles, despite the fact the state’s very own Hydrogen Minister Mick de Brenni, who was in the room, would have been a more suitable choice to introduce the billionaire.

Miles got through his speech perfectly well but mumbled his way through a very targeted question from Media Club host Mark Ludlow about when Queensland would retire its coal-fired power stations. We gather it is all going to be in a report sometime.

Dr Andrew Forrest with Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles (right).

REVEL WITH A CAUSE

Energy billionaire Trevor St Baker through his St Baker Energy Innovation Fund has pumped $6.5m into New York-based e-mobility company Revel. Revel, which operates electric cars, scooters and mopeds, is best known for its fleet of distinctive blue Teslas.

St Baker joins BlackRock Renewable Power, Toyota Ventures, Goodyear Ventures, Shell Ventures, Broadscale Group and Knighthead Capital Management in a $126 million funding round for Revel.

St Baker Energy Innovation Fund chief executive Rodger Whitby says the fund’s investment demonstrated its commitment to investing in next-generation technologies.

In contrast to the popular gig-economy rideshare business model popularised by platforms like Uber and Didi, which relies on self-employed drivers making an unstable income and using their own vehicles, Revel provides job security by employing drivers for its vehicles.

The deal by St Baker comes after US President Joe Biden this month backed another one of his investments Brisbane-based electric vehicle charging firm Tritium.

Energy billionaire Trevor St Baker

JIM’S NEW GIG

Former QIC executive Jim Christensen has been lured out of retirement to take on the role of chair of Alvia Asset Partners‘ investment advisory committee.

The appointment to the Brisbane-based firm, which took effect earlier this month will add his prominent voice to an already strong cohort of seasoned investors managing a portfolio of in excess, of $200m.

Christensen retired from managing QIC’s state investments team in September last year after spending almost six years with the fund. Prior to rejoining QIC in 2016, he served as chief investment officer at Telstra Super.

The Sunshine-state based investment maven says he made the decision to join Alvia because he understood his retirement was never going to be an idle time, particularly when studying and analysing financial markets and investments had been his life’s work. “It’s exciting to be involved at the coal face with the next generation of investment leaders,” Christensen says.

Originally published as NextDC profit fueled by work-from-home arrangements