Data center company intends to accelerate expansion in Latin America, expects to quintuple revenues in five years

12/14/2022

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Andrew Schaap — Foto: Divulgação

The U.S.-based data-center infrastructure company Aligned announced on Tuesday the acquisition of 100% of the capital of the Brazilian company Odata, which has data center operations in Brazil and other Latin American countries.

The deal was signed over the weekend by Pátria Investimentos fund, which holds about 90% of Aligned’s capital, and by the U.S.-based data-center company CyrusOne, which held about 10% of Odata.

The value of the deal and its terms were not revealed. Sources say the deal is valued at more than R$10 billion and represents 26 times Odata’s EBITDA.

The deal depends on approval by the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) in Brazil, as well as the regulatory bodies in the United States, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, where the companies have operations.

According to Ricardo Alário Arantes, Odata’s CEO, the acquisition does not change the company’s data center expansion schedule — today there are eight in four countries — or the team of 350 employees in Latin America. “We will accelerate the conquest of new clients and business opportunities,” said the executive.

The purchase of Odata makes it possible for Aligned, which has 16 data centers in the United States, to bring clients to Latin America. “Exporting clients is exactly what we want to do,” Andrew Schaap, CEO of Aligned Data Centers, told Valor.

Mr. Schaap says his schedule of trips with Mr. Arantes to visit current and potential clients will be intense in the coming weeks, focusing on the 2,000 largest companies in Fortune magazine’s global index.

With the support of Macquarie Asset Management fund, Aligned intends to accelerate investments in Odata’s expansion. According to Mr. Schaap, the plan is to invest more than R$5.3 billion ($1 billion) in the Latin American operation in the next 10 years. The company also expects to quintuple revenues in five years.

Felipe Pinto, a partner at Pátria Investimentos, said that the exit is part of a natural cycle. “We launched Odata as a startup and, for us, it is a typical cycle that has been completed,” he said.

In April, Valor reported that Pátria was already in advanced conversations with international M&A boutiques and foreign investment banks to define who could buy Odata. At the time, the company was valued at $1 billion.

In addition to Odata, Pátria has already divested companies such as Highline do Brasil, a telecommunications tower company, sold in December 2019 to the U.S.-based investment group Digital Bridge (former Digital Colony), and Vogel Telecom, of fiber optic connectivity for companies, sold to the Algar Telecom group for R$600 million in May 2021.

According to Mr. Pinto, Pátria continues to invest in technology, as well as in energy, logistics, and sustainable companies. One company in the current portfolio is Winity, which was created in 2020 to provide infrastructure for wireless networks.

Odata, which was created in 2015, does not disclose its revenues, but they come mostly from long-term contracts with large cloud computing service providers, as well as clients in the financial, telecommunications, and education industries.

Odata currently has six data centers in operation — three in Brazil, one in Chile, one in Colombia, and one in Mexico. The company has three other centers under construction in Brazil and Chile with delivery scheduled for the first half of 2023, as well as in Mexico, for the first half of 2024.

At the end of last year, the company raised $30 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s branch aimed at the private sector, to finance the expansion of its data center structure in Latin America, including Brazil.

In August, Odata received a new loan from IFC, of $35 million, to invest in the expansion of data centers in Latin America.

Mr. Arantes says Odata continues to work with the IFC and expects Aligned to bring in new funding partners for expansion.

In addition to supporting the expansion of leading U.S. data center providers Aligned and Netrality Data Centers, Macquarie Asset Management manages investments in AirTrunk, a data center operator with facilities in Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong. In September, it announced the acquisition of a minority stake in British data center company Virtus, which operates in the Greater London area and is owned by Singapore’s ST Telemedia.

Macquarie Asset Management, a division of the Australian group of investments Macquarie, managed more than $2.8 trillion in assets by the end of September, up 8% year-over-year, according to the company’s most recent financial statement.

*By Daniela Braun — São Paulo

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/