Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation may sell its $2bn stake in CDC Data Centres to one of its existing owners, according to sources.
As earlier reported, Commonwealth Super Corp is looking to exit its stake, which is likely to trigger a sale process, and some say Barrenjoey is well placed to run the auction.
The recent chatter in the market is one of the existing owners, the Future Fund, may be keen to increase its stake.
Australian listed infrastructure asset manager Morrison & Co purchased CDC Data Centres in 2016 for about $1.1bn on behalf of Infratil and Commonwealth Super.
Infratil owns 48.2 per cent, and in 2020, Commonwealth Super Corp sold half of its 48.2 per cent interest to the Future Fund.
In its last annual report Infratil says the fair value was $NZ4.4bn ($4.04bn), but many observers believe that, based on strong demand, the entire business is now worth $NZ5bn to $NZ6bn, which would make Commonwealth Super’s stake worth about $2bn.
It comes as suitors get ready to lob their final offers this week in the AirTrunk data centre auction.
Blackstone, backed by Canadian pension funds and advised by Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, is up against Digital Bridge, supported by Silver Lake, IFM and GIP, and advised by Barrenjoey.
The $15bn AirTrunk is owned by PSP, Macquarie Group and former Next DC executive Robin Khuda.
It is one of the country’s most prized data centre companies at a time when they are in demand with the rise of artificial intelligence.
AirTrunk has over 1.4 gigawatts of announced data centre capacity across 11 sites and a pipeline for further capacity.
It is considered the best-in-class hyperscale data centre platform for large cloud content and enterprise customers across the Asia-Pacific.
AirTrunk launched its first hyperscale data centre in western Sydney.
The data centre company also has operations in Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore.
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