Canada, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, M&A, core, edge, connectivity, interconnection, SMB, more expansions
A busy week saw significant developments in two markets – Toronto and Kuala Lumpur – that are worlds apart. Meanwhile, we have more results coming out of the UK, while there was other M&A and various regions around the world saw more data centre expansion activity.
The 151 Front carrier hotel in Toronto, owned by Allied Properties REIT, and other assets were acquired by KDDI Telehouse in a transaction valued at over $1b. This portfolio has been on the market for a while and garnered significant interest from operators and investment platforms. Grain Management is an investment platform active across the digital infrastructure spectrum and acquired a majority stake in an enterprise data centre based just outside Toronto in Brampton. Toronto is a market that Compass Datacenters operates in and Brookfield Infrastructure along with existing investor Ontario Teacher’s acquired the company.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia also saw notable activity. Equinix entered Malaysia last year with a build in the Johor market and now will build another data centre in Kuala Lumpur. NEXTDC is based in Australia and its first project outside the country is also in Kuala Lumpur. AirTrunk is another Australian operator that recently entered Malaysia and it revealed this past week that it is expanding again in Sydney. Another market in APAC that saw developments was India. AWS recently disclosed plans to invest heavily in the country and Equinix launched its interconnection services portfolio there.
A busy week in transactions also saw a deal happen in the SMB space. Squarespace acquired the domain registration assets operated by Google and will become a reseller and partner.
Infrastructure continues to expand globally. Cologix completed a major build in Northern Virginia, 365 Data Centers is expanding in Tampa and Sabey Data Centers finished an expansion in Quincy, Washington. In Europe, Global Technical Realty is progressing in London, atNorth opened a third data centre in Iceland and Microsoft is set to launch a cloud infrastructure region in Milan, Italy. And in APAC, STT GDC confirmed plans to expand its portfolio of data centres in the Philippines.
Finally, there were results coming out of the UK, with iomart Group and Redcentric reporting half-year results.
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