Craig Scroggie (NextDC)
Australian data centre operator NextDC has officially revealed plans to expand into New Zealand, as well as Malaysia, with sites for new facilities already purchased.
The new data centres – AK1 in Auckland, New Zealand, as reported last week by sister publication Reseller News, and KL1 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – are expected to reach practical completion of phase one in FY26.
AK1 has total power planned of at least 10MW, while KL1 is expected to reach 65MW.
NextDC CEO Craig Scroggie said the expansion into the two countries “marks an important milestone in [the company’s] growth strategy”.
“Building upon the success we have achieved in Australia over the past decade, we aim to replicate our proven business model in these new markets. As always, our focus remains on creating a highly diversified ecosystem of enterprise, connectivity, cloud and managed service provider customers,” he said.
“New Zealand and Malaysia are just the first greenfield geographic expansion opportunities outside of Australia and we are excited about the possibilities ahead."
Additionally, the data centre operator is looking to speed up the planned upgrade of its Sydney-based S3 data centre. In April, NextDC announced on the ASX that, following recent contract wins, its contracted utilisation increased by 35.9MW, or 43 per cent, to 120MW.
As a result, S3 has reached 46 per cent of total planned capacity, with the overall contracted utilisation “significantly exceeding” the facilities’ built capacity.
To fund the data centres and S3’s fit out, NextDC is raising funds with a roughly A$618 million fully underwritten one for eight pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer of new fully paid ordinary shares.
The offer is priced at A$10.80 per new share, which the data centre operator claims represents a 7.5 per cent discount to the theoretical ex-rights price (TERP) of A$11.67.
Of the approximate A$618 million, about A$140 million is to go to AK1, while KL1 will receive roughly A$250 million and S3’s fit out will see around A$150 million.
After the allocation between the three projects, the rest will be used for “general corporate purposes” and the payment of any transaction costs related to the offer.
