HMC Capital Buys Australia’s iseek Platform for $400 Million
HMC Capital Limited, one of the leading diversified alternative asset manager focused on real estate, private equity, energy transition, digital infrastructure and private credit in Australia, has announced the acquisition of iseek, a leading Australian co-location data centre operating platform for $400 million.
The iseek acquisition is consistent with HMC’s recently announced strategy to establish a Global Digital Infrastructure Platform (DigiCo), the company said in a regulatory filing with Australia Stock Exchange on Monday.
HMC has now secured $2.5 billion of strategic operating assets in Australia and is in exclusive due-diligence on an additional $1.6 billion of data centre assets located in North America. These acquisitions will seed an ASX-listed DigiCo Infrastructure REIT (DigiCo REIT), which will be a diversified owner, operator and developer of data centres, with a global portfolio targeting stabilised, value-add and development opportunities, with over $4 billion of Assets Under Management (AUM).
HMC Managing Director and CEO David Di Pilla said that iseek is a leading colocation data centre platform with a high quality and diverse customer base across government, hyperscale and enterprise customers. This acquisition is also highly complementary to HMC’s recent acquisition of Global Switch Australia with a number of benefits including enhanced geographic and customer diversification.
“The DigiCo platform will have over 100 dedicated people across iseek, Global Switch Australia and StratCap, and represents the beginning of our strategy to build a world-class operating platform providing investors with exposure to institutional grade digital infrastructure assets in both Australia and North America,” he explained.
iseek CEO Scott Hicks and the company’s Founder & Executive Director Jason Gomersall, said that they were excited to be partnering with HMC Capital’s DigiCo platform to accelerate iseek’s next phase of growth. A significant portion of the acquisition proceeds will be taken in scrip in the DigiCo Infrastructure REIT IPO which is a testament to their strong conviction in the REIT’s investment strategy and growth runway, he said.
iseek comprises a portfolio of seven co-location data centres principally located across Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales in Australia.
Key Highlights
The Key highlights and portfolio details include leading position in attractive high-growth secondary markets, including Brisbane and Adelaide, which are expected to benefit from significant hyperscale edge deployments over the medium-term, long-term customer relationships in place across government, enterprise and hyperscale tenants, with the government representing iseek’s largest customer, clear visibility on near-term lease-up opportunities across existing facilities, driven by strong sales pipeline, continued demand from submarkets and under utilisation of capacity, long-term campus expansion optionality in place with strategic asset footprint and positioning providing development upside and attractive economics underpinned by co-location focused offering with complementary services including private cloud and connectivity solutions.
