Newly established investment trust, Digital 9 Infrastructure, acquires provider of sustainable data center solutions, Verne Global, in a deal valued at approximately £231/$320 million in cash.
UK-based Digital 9 Infrastructure plc is a newly established, externally managed investment trust. The company invests in various digital infrastructure assets delivering a reliable, functioning internet. It aims to provide an integrated solution – digital infrastructure with green and cleaner power.
Digital 9 Infrastructure aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 9, to “build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.”
Its portfolio will cover future-proofed, non-legacy, scalable platforms and technologies, such as subsea fiber, data centers, terrestrial fiber, tower infrastructure, and small cell networks, including 5G.
Its latest acquisition, Verne Global, reaffirms the company’s strategy. It increases data centers’ availability in areas with abundant supplies of clean energy. Thus, it accelerates Digital 9 Infrastructure’s ambition to decarbonize digital infrastructure.
Thor Johnsen, who serves the role of Head of Digital Infrastructure at Triple Point, D9’s Investment Manager, had this to say:
We are thrilled to add the Verne Global platform to the growing D9 portfolio. Together with the D9 subsea investment in Aqua Comms, we are pursuing further fiber network opportunities to improve connectivity into the Nordics, enabling data center users reliable and low-cost access to the vast renewable and low-cost energy resources of Iceland and the Nordics.
Verne Global, established in 2012, delivers data center solutions for high-intensity computing. Its 40-acre Icelandic data center campus has been designed from the ground up, engineered for optimal high-performance compute, and built upon 100% renewable energy.
So, its structure is developed to cut costs and energy usage. Furthermore, Verne Global’s services come with expert on-site, around-the-clock support. In turn, the company can maximize performance and flexibility for customer workloads.
Today we are excited to announce Verne Global is now part of the Digital 9 Infrastructure platform.
Many thanks for the support from our prior shareholders, Wellcome Trust, Stefnir, Novator Partners, and General Catalyst Partners.https://t.co/SEKhzvoUcS pic.twitter.com/LkNdw6edR7
— Verne Global (@VerneGlobal) September 6, 2021
Verne Global provides highly specialist data center services for organizations running high-intensity compute workloads, including AI, machine learning, high-performance computing (HPC), and supercomputing. It powers some of the world’s most innovative and demanding industries, such as financial, earth, and life sciences, engineering, scientific research, and AI.
Dominic Ward, who serves the role of a CEO of Verne Global, had this to say:
We are absolutely delighted to become part of the Digital 9 Infrastructure platform. Its mission to support and develop highly resilient digital infrastructures that fuel innovation, but are also sustainable and inclusive, resonates tremendously with Verne Global’s own business objectives. What Verne Global has achieved over the last decade is a fantastic accomplishment and is a great acknowledgment of the exceptional team that we have. We are hugely grateful for the support that we have had from our prior shareholders – Wellcome Trust, Stefnir, Novator Partners, and General Catalyst Partners – to this point. As we look forward, we are now hugely excited to be working with D9 and believe that we have the perfect partner to help power our future.
This deal is Digital 9 Infrastructure’s first data-center acquisition. According to the London-listed investment trust, the price represents a multiple of around 20 times the contracted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization run-rate. The company further specified; it offers a base cash yield of over 7%.
