Bridge Data Centres (Bridge) has completed the acquisition of two data centres located in Cyberjaya, Malaysia, from Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), a Malaysian Government Pension Fund.
The acquisition will support the provider’s expansion across Asia Pacific (APAC), as the company looks to provide improved colocation services for the region's rapidly-growing digital market.
Bridge is a Bain Capital Private Equity portfolio company, with offices in Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur and San Francisco.
“We are excited to announce the completion of this complex transaction," said Michael Foust, executive chairman, Bridge Data Centres.
“There has been strong demand for our data centre services in Malaysia, and we will continue to invest in campus-style developments, with energy-efficient buildings, to serve the growing needs of our customers.”
Bridge's two new data centres, renamed MY01 and MY02 under Bridge Data Centres Malaysia Sdn Bhd, comprise approximately one million square feet of data centre facilities and 20 megawatts (MW) of critical IT load.
Specifically, MY01 and MY02 serve many domestic and global blue-chip customers from a diverse set of industries, with Bridge planning to expand this footprint in Cyberjaya through the development of a further 20 MW.
According to Foust, the move is designed to cater for the scaling needs of the provider’s largest customers, as APAC prepares to become the “most important” data centre regional market by 2020.
“Due to sustained double-digit growth in the data centre industry, it has been challenging to train and retain the right talent,” Bridge CEO, Kris Kumar, added.
“We believe that our people are our competitive differentiator, and we have maintained a strong focus on building a true enterprise platform as we expand into further markets in the region.
“The acquisition in Malaysia brings a further 90 data centre professionals into the Bridge family and we are excited at leveraging their local knowledge to invest and grow our business there.”
The announcement follows Bridge's acquisition in November 2017 of the two data centres' operating business and the rights to a dedicated fibre ring within Cyberjaya connecting the data centres, from CSF Group, an AIM-listed regional data centre management firm.
Bridge is also commencing construction of a new global "best-in-class" greenfield data centre in Mumbai, India, in June 2018.
Expected to be ready for service by 4Q 2019, the 350,000 square feet facility will be certified tier-3 by The Uptime Institute, and will provide 18 MW of IT load capacity for global and domestic customers.
Furthermore, Bridge is also exploring other geographies across the wider region, in order to develop a “balanced portfolio” across APAC.
“We have steadily built an investment team that can underwrite large greenfield developments, as well as execute on existing assets with complex transactions like this one we have announced today,” Bridge CFO, Pithambar Gona, added.
“Consistent with our strategy of developing our platform that serves our key global customers in developed and emerging markets, we recently agreed terms to acquire an industrial facility in Singapore and to redevelop it into a large facility serving the rapidly evolving needs of our customers in this key market.
“We expect there will be more announcements soon on our activities in Singapore and the rest of the region.”
Founded by Foust and Kumar, Bridge's customers span multiple industry sectors, including financial institutions, technology companies, governments and large cloud services providers in Asia Pacific and worldwide.
