Digital Realty has partnered with GI Partners to establish a joint venture for the sale of a 65% interest in two data center buildings and associated equipment in the Chicago metro area. Digital Realty will receive approximately $743 million of gross proceeds and will maintain a 35% interest in the joint venture while continuing to manage the day-to-day operations of the assets, providing a seamless customer experience.
Digital Realty has also granted GI Partners an option to purchase an interest in the third facility on the same hyperscale data center campus.
Digital Realty originally acquired the facilities in 2017 through its merger with DuPont Fabros. The two data centers contributed to the joint venture contain approximately 67 megawatts of IT capacity and are 90% occupied in aggregate, primarily by investment grade customers.
- In 2017, Digital Realty acquired DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $7.6 billion. DFT owns and operates a fleet of 12 purpose-built data centres concentrated in Northern Virginia, Chicago and Silicon Valley – three markets red hot for data centre activity. The DFT properties offer a combined total 3.5 million gross sq feet and 302 megawatts of available critical load. Digital Realty is the premier name in data centres, as it operates 156 key colocation facilities in 11 countries on four continents. The merger especially boosted Digital Realty’s presence in hyperscale data centres in top U.S. markets.