Shonfeld negotiating data center stake sale at $3.6b co value
Jun 30, 2023 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
According to "Globes," Yossi Shonfeld's company Shonfeld Engineering has enlisted Jefferies Group investment bank to manage discussions for selling 20–30% of data center firm Shonfeld Data Services (SDS) at a $3.6 billion company valuation. Shonfeld follows in the wake of the Azrieli Group and Serverfarm, owned by the Papouchado family, which both sold shares of their data center businesses for a sizable profit. Shonfeld wants around $700 million to $1 billion in cash as well as to keep control of the business.
According to market sources, European infrastructure and telecom operators want to purchase the stake. Currently, negotiations are taking place with businesses from several European nations, but no deadline has been established. Any transaction will presumably reflect a 25x multiple on SDS's EBITDA. SDS has five data centers, one of which is currently under construction. The biggest of these data centers, which hosts cloud computing services for Google and Microsoft in Israel, is in the Ligad Industrial Zone in Modi'in. In its initial phase, the Beit Yehoshua data center under construction by SDS will host Google.
A week ago, Azreli Group offered its 32% stake in Compass Data Centers at a company value of $5.7 billion, resulting in a gain of NIS 1.3 billion before taxes. The Papouchado family, owners of Red Sea Real Estate, sold Serverfarm to another company for $600 million last month.