Telefonica has announced the sale of four of its data centers to Asterion Industrial Partners. The four facilities sold include two in Chile and two in Spain and sold in exchange for a 20% stake in Nabiax, a subsidiary of Asterion. This, it said, will help it continue its "exposure to a global data center platform with attractive growth prospects."
Naibax will operate these four facilities
These four facilities add to the 11 data centers Asterion bought from the Spanish telco in 2019 and bring a combined service capacity of 9.9 megawatts. Nabiax will operate them.
Telefonica clarified that the company will continue to "provide and manage" its customers' services from the four data centers and maintain a direct relationship with these data center customers.
While no official timeline has been released, it is expected that the closing will happen in two phases.
Press release:
Madrid, 10 May, 2021. Telefónica has signed an agreement with Asterion Industrial Partners, leading independent investment management firm, for the contribution of four Data Centers (DCs) currently owned by the Telefonica Group (two in Spain and two in Chile) to Nabiax, Colocation and Housing service provider and owner of the eleven Data Centers sold by Telefónica in 2019. As a result of this contribution, Telefónica Infra will receive a 20% stake in Nabiax, establishing an important strategic partnership with the company’s current shareholder, Asterion and its coinvestors, who retain the remaining 80% of the share capital.
The transaction includes an agreement for housing services in the four DC’s under equivalent terms and conditions as those established in the prior transaction (initial term of ten years). The transaction does not include the sale of servers owned by Telefónica, nor the management and access to customers hosted on them. Telefónica will therefore continue to provide and manage the services that it has been offering to its customers from these DCs and will maintain the direct relationship with such customers.
The agreement announced today allows Telefónica to crystallize the value of its infrastructure assets, while preserving intact Telefónica’s commercial positioning, client relationships and leadership in cloud, hosting and housing services provided to corporate customers. Additionally, through the 20% stake that Telefónica Infra will hold in Nabiax, Telefónica retains exposure to a global data center platform with attractive growth prospects participating in the company's value upside.
Furthermore, Nabiax and Telefónica will continue developing their existing commercial cooperation and will explore new joint business opportunities, such as new services, edge computing and data centre automation.
Closing of the transaction is subject to the corresponding regulatory approvals and certain administrative procedures and is expected to take place in two phases (one in relation with the Spanish DCs and a second one in relation with the Chilean DCs).
