London, 18 December 2024 – Global Switch Holdings Limited (“Global Switch” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the completion of the A$2.12 billion sale of Global Switch Australia Holdings Ltd (“GSAH”).
The successful transaction has enabled Global Switch to fully realise the value of its historic economic interests in GSAH and represents a significant first step in the Company’s capital raising to fund future growth. All customary regulatory and lender approvals have been received and Global Switch has retained its strong investment grade credit ratings.
Following completion, GSAH and its subsidiaries and GSAH’s immediate parent entity, Global Switch Group Limited, have been released as guarantors of Global Switch's bonds and other debt obligations.
The net proceeds of this transaction have further strengthened the Company’s balance sheet and provide substantial further capital for Global Switch to capitalise on the significant growth opportunities it has identified. The company continues to see attractive opportunities predominantly in its existing core Tier 1 markets of Europe and Asia-Pacific and also in selective new, high-growth Asian markets.
The Company continues to pursue a dual-track growth strategy of redeveloping and densifying existing data centres together with developing new sites, often adjacent to existing assets. The Company is focused on delivering high-quality, low-latency IT capacity that meets a wide range of customer needs, including both air- and liquid-cooled AI and high-performance computing (HPC) demand.
As part of its financing strategy to drive future growth, Global Switch has also recently appointed UBS as financial adviser to explore co-investment opportunities for its super-prime London data centre portfolio.
Global Switch’s existing London data centre portfolio benefits from irreplicable proximity and connectivity to key business centres. The portfolio, in London’s Docklands, includes two operating data centres and a new, high-density hyperscale neo-cloud development, all designed to house the latest HPC and AI compute available on the market.
In total, Global Switch’s London portfolio has secured access to a total of 224 MVA of power in a highly supply-constrained market over the coming five years.
London’s data centre market continues to be one of the largest in the world, and is set to continue its growth to remain Europe’s largest Tier 1 market. Global Switch’s London campus is already meeting the demands of customers, deploying over 10,000 Nvidia H200 and H100 GPUs. This represents one of the largest HPC deployments in the UK.
Current market conditions, where demand for AI and HPC data centres continues to outstrip supply, present an ideal opportunity to recycle capital and fund further growth. The formal process of exploring co-investment in the UK has commenced in London and the Company will provide a further update in due course.
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About Global Switch
Global Switch is a leading owner, operator and developer of large-scale, carrier and cloud neutral, multi-customer data centres in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Founded in 1998, Global Switch has a proven business model, demonstrable track record and is one of the highest credit rated data centre companies in the world, rated BBB by Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings and Baa2 by Moody’s.
Global Switch is a vital strategic partner for customers that require secure and resilient data centre services with scalable capacity and a high-level of customer service. The Company's focus is on providing high power density suitable for HPC and AI deployments with both air and liquid cooled optionality, as well as highly resilient, central, low latency, network dense locations in prime city centre locations and internet hubs close to its customers on the edge of financial and business districts.
Global Switch’s data centres operate exclusively in the Tier I markets of Europe and Asia-Pacific to Tier III or higher and currently total around 428,000 sq. m (4,600,000 sq. ft) of floor space and are occupied by a broad range of customers, global and national, large and small, including government organisations, financial institutions, enterprises, global systems integrators, telecommunication carriers, cloud and managed service providers and other hosting businesses.
For more information visit: globalswitch.com.