David Hart

David advises corporate and financial sponsor clients on a range of transactions, including complex, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, co-investments and minority and growth capital investments. His experience spans a number of asset classes, including digital infrastructure, real assets, and solar energy. David focuses on the technology sector with specific expertise in the date center space and digital infrastructure sector more broadly. He coordinates the Firm’s digital infrastructure group.  

Digital Infrastructure and Real Assets

• Advised European satellite operator Eutelsat on the carve-out and sale of a majority stake in Eutelsat’s Ground Station Infrastructure Business to EQT.
• Advised Gulf Data Hub, a leading independent carrier and vendor neutral data center platform in the Middle East, on the sale of a significant stake to global investment firm KKR.
• Advised Equinix, Inc. on multiple development joint ventures including:
  • its USD 600 million joint venture with PGIM Real Estate to develop and operate xScale data centers in Silicon Valley, USA; 
  • USD 525m joint venture with GIC to develop and operate xScale data centers in South Korea;
  • its USD 3.9 billion joint venture with GIC to develop and operate xScale data centers in Europe and South Central America;
  • USD 575 million joint venture with PGIM Real Estate to develop and operate xScale data centers in Australia;
  • its USD 1 billion joint venture with GIC to develop and operate xScale data centers in Japan; and
  • its USD 1 billion joint venture with GIC to develop and operate xScale data centers in Europe.
• Advised Lightsource bp on matters impacting the group arising out of bp’s agreement to acquire a 50.03% interest in Lightsource bp from Block M shareholders.
• Advised Danish shipping and logistics company, DFDS A/S on its EUR 950 million acquisition of UN Ro-Ro from it private equity owners Actera Group and Esas Holding.
• Advised Lightsource BP on the creation of its partnership with BlackRock Real Assets including the transfer of a 25 asset newly-constructed ROC and CFD portfolio with an installed capacity of 156 MW.

Technology

• Advised the shareholders of ISDI, the X-ray detector and CMOS image sensor specialists, on the sale of a 30% interest to Careray. 
• Advised investors including Warburg Pincus, Accel, Partech, Salesforce and HSBC on the sale of Privitar to Informatica.
• Advised fintech Salary Finance on the merger of its US business with FinFit.
• Advised NTT Docomo on the sale of its global payments business to UK fintech Bango.
• Advised Epicor, a global leader of industry-specific enterprise software on its acquisition of Data Interchange, a provider of EDI cloud technologies and managed services.
• Advised Atos on its acquisition of Ipsotek, a leading AI enhanced video analytics software provider.
• Advised Finbourne on its Series A funding round, including strategic investments from Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and London Stock Exchange Group.
• Advised SCB10X on its investment in, and ultimate exit from, Currency Cloud.
• Advised the Bitfury Group, a bitcoin and full-service blockchain technology company, on its USD 80 million private placement with global institutions and corporate investors.
• Advised Veridium, a fintech company focused on biometric authentication, in connection with its equity financing and shareholder arrangements, including its Series B funding round.

• Law Society of England & Wales - Member