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Macquarie Technology Group (ASX: MAQ) has announced a $100 million underwritten capital raise to help fund the acquisition of two data centres within its Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus in Sydney from Singapore-listed Keppel DC REIT (SGX: AJBU).
The news follows NEXTDC's (ASX: NXT) announcement yesterday of a successful $937 million institutional placement as part of a larger $1.32 billion raise, while ResearchAndMarkets.com recently issued a forecast that the Australian data centre market is set to rise from $2.5 billion in FY23 to more than $6.1 billion in FY28.
Macquarie, which in February reported a 74 per cent increase in net profit after tax (NPAT) to $14.8 million in the December half, has reached a deal to buy the existing Intellicentre 2 and Intellicentre 3 East land and buildings within the campus for $174 million.
The company already owns all mechanical and electrical plant and fit-out for the sites, and is also building a third data centre to the campus called Intellicentre 3 SuperWest, which upon its expected completion in the third quarter of the 2026 calendar year will have all of its end state power in place to support 63MW of IT load.
The purchase price will be partially funded from an unsecured $90 million loan note to be issued to Keppel for an 8.5-year period, in addition to a $100 million placement at $72.50 per share, representing 6.1 per cent discount to the last closing price.
"The acquisition of the land and buildings at Macquarie Park gives us long-term control of the campus at a time when we are making a significant investment in expanding capacity by building IC3 SuperWest," says Macquarie Technology Group chief executive officer David Tudehope.
"Ownership of the land and buildings will support our plans to accelerate growth in Macquarie Data Centres.
"Purchasing the land and buildings also delivers on the expectations of our customer base which values our Australian ownership, data security and our sovereign credentials."
The group says long-term site ownership enhances Macquarie Data Centres’ ability to deliver scale that meets the needs of its government, global hyperscale and wholesale customers, as well as greater flexibility for future capital management.
Macquarie's data centres have been “Certified Strategic” by the Australian Government, meaning the company is approved to hold the most sensitive types of government workloads. The company currently has 42 per cent of government agencies as customers and its business is supported by more than 200 NV1 (negative vetting 1) security cleared engineers.
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