KKR and data centre entrepreneur Franek Sodzawiczny are forming Global Technical Realty, a new build-to-suit and roll-up acquisition data centre platform, to develop and operate data centres for large tech companies across Europe as the PE group sees continued demand for data.
KKR will make a USD1 billion equity commitment primarily from its third global infrastructure fund, which may be topped up with additional commitments over time. “The data centre market in Europe presents a unique opportunity to invest behind the secular trend of increased cloud services adoption and demand for data,” said Waldemar Szlezak, managing director of KKR.
KKR was advised by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Global Technical Realty was advised by Charles Russell Speechlys on the deal.
Alongside debt financing, KKR’s equity commitment is expected to support more than USD2.5 billion of asset development and investment, including opportunities from a commercial pipeline as the demand for third- party data centre provision continues to grow, according to KKR.
Andrew Peisch, director of KKR, said: “The 25 years of industry experience that Franek brings to the table, alongside the rest of the management team, is impressive and exactly the kind of know-how we sought out to invest in the sector.”
GTR has partnered with European engineering contractor Mercury Engineering to develop a data centre product specifically catered to the needs of hyperscale cloud service providers. “We are thrilled to have found an investor like KKR that shares our vision for the future of the data center market,” said GTR CEO and founder Franek Sodzawiczny.
Franek Sodzawiczny, formerly the founder & CEO of Zenium Data Centers and co-founder & CDO of Sentrum, will be joined by a number of professionals with roots in the data centre industry, including Martin Carroll, Mark Trevor and Tom Sodzawiczny.
