Credit: Dreamstime
Bain Capital-owned businesses ChinData and Bridge Data Centres have merged operations to create a “pan-Asian” data centre platform in the region.
New parent company - ChinData Group - will continue to operate under the ChinData and Bridge brands respectively and provide hyperscale, wholesale and custom-build data centre solutions to regional and global customers, with facilities in China, India and Southeast Asia.
The company has currently delivered over 100 MW of contracted capacity and is still under "continuous and full-speed development".
Acquired by Bain Capital in May 2019, ChinData is a Chinese operator of campus-style, hyperscale data centres while Bridge Data Centres - owned by the private equity firm since 2017 - is a wholesale and custom build data centre business.
“This deal demonstrates Bain Capital’s capabilities as a truly cross-regional, multi-asset class investment platform,” said Jonathan Zhu, co-head of Asia Private Equity for Bain Capital.
“The combined entity brings together the best minds to power the Asian data revolution, especially in China and India, the two largest and most promising markets globally. ChinData Group will be able to move quickly to serve customers on a pan-Asian regional basis and build a differentiated position in the market.”
Bain Capital’s investment in the combined entity is funded from vehicles managed by Bain Capital Private Equity and Bain Capital Credit.
Zhu said executing this multi-part deal and corporate combination required “long-term creative thinking and financing” over more than three years, beginning with a greenfield development in India and acquisitions in Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, Zhu said ChinData Group is poised to benefit from the "dramatic growth" in demand among enterprise customers for cloud services, backed by the expansion of opportunities in Asia for international cloud providers that require high performance mission critical data centre facilities.
“This transaction showcases that Bain Capital, with both private equity and special situations teams, can provide a wide spectrum of solutions to businesses in Asia looking for growth capital,” added Barnaby Lyons, managing director and head of Asia, Bain Capital Credit.
Lyons said the combined company employs professionals with "deep experience and capabilities" in data centre design, development, and facility operations.
Looking ahead, the combined entity expects to invest further capital to expand its footprint of wholesale and custom-build hyperscale solutions to more than 300 MW over the next two years to become one of the largest independent third-party data centre platforms in Asia.
