Cloud services provider DataBank has signed a US$725 million credit facility to finance its ongoing and future data centre construction projects.
TD Securities was the administrative agent, joint lead arranger, and joint bookrunner. Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, CoBank, and First Citizens were joint lead arrangers and joint bookrunners. J.P. Morgan, Nomura Securities, RBC Capital Markets, and Regions Bank were joint lead arrangers. Bank of America and Goldman Sachs were co-documentation agents. Jones Day acted as legal adviser to DataBank.
The new capital will fund ongoing expansion in existing markets, including its campuses in New York, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Dallas.
This is DataBank’s second green financing, following a green securitization deal in February. In order to qualify as a green loan, the facilities being financed must meet specific sustainability criteria for water conservation, carbon emissions reduction, and low power usage effectiveness.
In February DataBank issued US$456 million of asset-backed securities in its fourth securitization since 2021, bringing the total securitized portfolio to US$2.16 billion of investment-grade bonds.
The proceeds were to be used to refinance a previous bridge loan put in place to purchase four data centres in Houston, Texas, from CyrusOne in 2022, and to fund the development of additional data centre capacity.
Deutsche Bank Securities acted as sole structuring agent and joint active bookrunning manager. Guggenheim Securities and TD Securities also acted as joint active bookrunning managers. Kroll Bond Rating Agency rated the notes “A-”.
AI applications boost demand
DataBank operates the largest portfolio of data centres in the United States, with more than 65 data centres and 20 major interconnect locations in 27 metro markets. The company aims to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
According to DataBank, new and emerging artificial intelligence (AI) applications have created unprecedented demand for data centre capacity.
In November 2023, DataBank announced the acquisition of an 85-acre campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which will support up to 192 megawatts and 1.4 million gross square feet of data centre space. One month before that, it announced the acquisition of a 95-acre campus in Atlanta capable of supporting another 120MW and 1 million gross square feet of data centre space.
Once fully deployed, the facilities on those two campuses would nearly double the current 375MW and 2.7 million square feet across DataBank’s portfolio.
