Data Center Services

Insight | Handbook

Data Centre Securitisation in Europe

The pace of digital transformation has been accelerating worldwide. As part of this continued growth trajectory, the use by corporates of data centres has become essential.

We understand the complex, technical and operational issues around data centers. They are a mission-critical component of any business, and can present a range of complex real estate, IT, power and environmental challenges that can be difficult to navigate through. Whether you are interested in the development, leasing/licensing, financing, or purchase or sale of a data center or colocation facility, it is no simple transaction, and requires an informed and holistic approach.

We are very uniquely positioned in the market to bring this expertise and experience to owners, investors and occupants. With our practice depth in real estate, IT, project finance, tax, energy, regulatory and data security, our truly global reach, and our local know how, no other firm can provide the same expertise as we can.

We advise clients on legal issues relevant to data centers, including:

Data Center M&A, PE and Transactions - Mergers and acquisitions and investments involving data center assets, operations and related infrastructure, including foreign investment screening in relevant jurisdictions and dealing with increasing government concerns on data security. We treat a data center as a core-plus infrastructure transaction rather than as a real estate deal.
Data Center Funds and REITs - Formation and development of REITS, fund vehicles, joint ventures and other platforms investing into data centers
Co-location, Leasing and Licensing - Drafting and negotiation of the terms of major customer contracts, particularly for hyperscale. This includes reviewing the scope of any service level agreements and associated penalties.
Data Center Infrastructure - Requirements for building a data center beginning with securing real estate leases or acquisition of land, foreign investment and other compliance requirements, negotiation of power supply agreements, and dealing with other matters such as security issues involving the access and restricted access to data center facilities, fire prevention and emergency response issues, provisioning for UPS (uninterrupted power supply) or backup power including battery servicing and replacement and testing regime for the UPS services, and developing strict requirements for testing and the commissioning of data centers at handover during data center construction. We also assist in issues involving technological and evolutionary changes over the life of the data center facility and undertaking "technical refresh" of the data center facilities overtime.
Renewable Energy and Sustainability - Applications for government incentives, responding to green procurement requirements and managing environmental impact changes, and review of availability of renewables.

Global interconnection and data center company
Advised on a USD 1 billion joint venture with Singapore's global wealth fund, to develop and operate xScaleTM data centers in Japan.

An Asia Pacific data center technology company
Advised on the development of a 300MW data center in Japan and its acquisition of land for data center development in Hong Kong and Indonesia. These deals are part of the client’s expansion plans across Asia Pacific.

Private equity real estate fund manager
Advised on the formation of a USD 1.3 billion China-focused data center investment platform.

One of the top technology companies in the US
Advised on the acquisition of land for the data center development in Taiwan, including negotiations of the purchase agreement and the trust arrangements with the bank. As a critical condition to the transaction, we also successfully assisted the client to obtain key approval from the government for the developments on the lands that are subject to special regulatory controls.

A leading technology company
Advising on regulatory, data privacy, tax and import and export issues in relation to its establishment and operation of data center facilities and its procurement of cloud and IT services in Asia, Europe and the US.

APG Asset Management
Advised on a USD 350 million investment into Chindata, a leading operator of hyperscale data centers that has over 13 data centers in China, Malaysia and India.

APG Asset Management
Advised on the acquisition of a 20% stake in OneAsia, an integrated data center developer and operator in Asia, providing IT services, cloud-based solutions and data center services.

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA)
Advised on the acquisition of an 88% stake in AirTrunk, by a consortium led by Macquarie Asia Infrastructure Fund 2 (MAIF2), a MIRA-Managed infrastructure fund. This investment values AirTrunk at more than AUD 3 billion.

A Canada-based pension fund
Advised on the sale of its Australian data center portfolio to a global interconnection and data center company for AUD 1.05 billion.