Closer to home, the most recent investment in data centres was announced on Sept 18 when Singapore Telecommunications (SGX:Z74
) (Singtel) announced that KKR has taken a 20% stake in its regional data centre (RDC) business for the equivalent of $1.1 billion. This investment puts the enterprise value of Singtel’s overall regional data centre business at $5.5 billion.
If data is the new oil, data centres, the massive energy-sapping buildings containing the racks of servers storing and processing all that data can perhaps be best described as oil refineries and oil tank farms of today. This in turn makes data centres an asset that can be traded among investors riding its growth.
For instance, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres is reportedly planning to raise more than US$1 billion ($1.37 billion) in an IPO that will value the Temasek-backed company at more than US$5 billion. More recently, Australia-based AirTrunk is similarly said to be weighing a US$1 billion offer that will see the company valued at around US$10 billion.
