American Tower Corporation and Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real assets, announced that Stonepeak, on behalf of certain affiliated investment vehicles, will acquire an ownership interest of approximately 29% in American Tower’s U.S. data center business as part of a new long-term strategic partnership. The partnership will be realized through an investment in common equity and mandatorily convertible preferred equity, in a transaction valued at $2.5 billion, implying an enterprise value of approximately $10.5 billion for the U.S. data center business (held as subsidiaries of American Tower). Pursuant to the related partnership agreement, American Tower will retain managerial and operational control, as well as day-to-day oversight of its U.S. data center business, and Stonepeak will obtain certain governance rights. Stonepeak is making its investment as part of its core infrastructure strategy. The affiliated investment vehicles have received equity and debt commitment letters in the amount of $2.5 billion from equity and debt financing sources.
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The transaction will position American Tower and Stonepeak to mutually benefit from the demand for low-latency, hybrid IT solutions and agile interconnection across the platform’s data center campuses, which are strategically located in key U.S. metro areas. The platform’s data center portfolio consists of 27 data centers in 10 U.S. markets, more than 450 networks, 23 native cloud on-ramps and over 35,000 interconnections.
Tom Bartlett, American Tower’s President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, “We are pleased to partner with Stonepeak in our U.S. data center business, where we expect to create value through growth in our highly interconnected, cloud on-ramp rich portfolio of data center assets. In Stonepeak, we’ve found a like-minded partner, with deep communications infrastructure experience and a long-term investment philosophy that aligns with the principles of American Tower and our longer-term strategy in the data centers segment. While this transaction supports the equity financing component for our previously completed CoreSite acquisition, it also creates a platform through which growth opportunities can be strategically evaluated and financed, with American Tower and Stonepeak committed to executing on opportunities as the 5G ecosystem continues to develop.”
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Andrew Thomas, Managing Director and Co-Head of Communications at Stonepeak, added, “American Tower has established one of the premier network dense, interconnection-focused data center platforms in the U.S. through CoreSite and previous acquisitions, which we view as a great fit for our core infrastructure strategy. The platform is strategically positioned to be at the forefront of the continued shift from a traditional centralized infrastructure model to a cloud-based, connected and distributed digital infrastructure model and we are excited to partner with the American Tower team to help accelerate investment behind this trend in the years to come.”
J.P. Morgan is serving as lead financial advisor to American Tower, who is also being advised by CDX Advisors. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP is serving as principal legal advisor to American Tower, who is also being advised by Sullivan & Worcester LLP with respect to certain REIT and tax matters. MUFG Bank, Ltd. is serving as sole financial advisor to Stonepeak. Sidley Austin LLP is serving as principal legal advisor to Stonepeak. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022, subject to customary closing conditions.
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