AirTrunk data centre sale pushed back

AirTrunk operates in Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore.

Macquarie Group is understood to have pushed back the start date for the sale of its $5bn-plus data centre business AirTrunk to the end of next month.

It comes after it has already made some informal approaches around the market through its advisory arm Macquarie Capital and Goldman Sachs.

Yet the name that continues to surface as the most likely buyer is Blackstone, with many in the market continuing to scratch their heads as to who else will give the New York-based private equity powerhouse a serious run for its money.

Blackstone has made it known it is keen to expand deeper into the data centre arena and that AirTrunk is on its agenda.

The other area where it is apparently keen to expand in Australia is in the area of industrial property, according to sources.

Another option is that Macquarie sells a smaller holding of the asset, which would attract more bidding tension.

Blackstone has purchased data centres in Australia before, and it meets the criteria for one of its key areas of investment.

In recent years, the private equity firm has told the market it positions its investor capital towards fast-growing areas of the economy, including renewable energy, life sciences and tech-enabled businesses.

AirTrunk is owned by Macquarie Asset Management, PSP and the owner and founder ex-Next DC executive Robin Khuda, and their dilemma is that if they hold the business too long, while it may increase in value, the buyer universe could become far smaller.

It is considered the best-in-class hyperscale data centre platforms for large cloud, content and enterprise customers across the Asia-Pacific, launching its first hyperscale data centre in western Sydney.

It operates in Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore.

Macquarie’s sale of AirTrunk means many have ruled it out of contention for TPG Telecom’s fibre assets that are about to be back on the market, according to sources.

Macquarie’s telco business Vocus Group was in talks to buy TPG Telecom’s non-mobile fibre assets last year but backed out of a deal.

Sources expect that they will be on the market again through Bank of America shortly, if negotiations are not already underway with a party.

TPG Telecom, which needs to fund its 5G rollout, said in its results this week that its fibre assets remained subject to review.

Vocus last year made an unsolicited bid for TPG’s “mini NBN” fixed infrastructure assets, including Vision Network which services about 400,000 customers.

But once the pair engaged in talks, the deal increased dramatically in scale to include TPG’s broadband assets, which would have effectively doubled Vocus’ market share in the business and government space, rivalling beleaguered Optus.