• About Us
  • Partnership Opportunities
  • Privacy Policy

Data Center Frontier

Charting the future of data centers and cloud computing.

  • Cloud
    • Hyperscale
  • Colo
    • Site Selection
    • Interconnection
  • Energy
    • Sustainability
  • Cooling
  • Technology
    • Internet of Things
    • AI & Machine Learning
    • Edge Computing
    • Virtual Reality
    • Autonomous Cars
    • 5G Wireless
    • Satellites
  • Design
    • Servers
    • Storage
    • Network
  • Voices
  • Podcast
  • White Papers
  • Resources
    • COVID-19
    • Events
    • Newsletter
    • Companies
    • Data Center 101
  • Jobs
You are here: Home / Hyperscale / Vantage Acquires NGD to Continue European Expansion

Vantage Acquires NGD to Continue European Expansion

By Rich Miller - April 7, 2020 Leave a Comment

Vantage Acquires NGD to Continue European Expansion

One of the huge data halls inside the 750,000 square foot Next Generation Data facility in Wales, which is being acquired by Vantage Data Centers. (Image: NGD)

LinkedinTwitterFacebookSubscribe
Mail

Vantage Data Centers has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Next Generation Data (NGD), a massive data center facility in Newport, Wales. The deal continues an aggressive European expansion by Vantage, which builds data center campuses for hyperscale customers.

Wales will become Vantage’s sixth strategic market in Europe. In February, Vantage unveiled its acquisition of a large campus in the strategically important Frankfurt market, along with land for greenfield data center campuses in Berlin, Milan, Zurich and Warsaw, Poland.

The expansion is backed by the resources of Digital Colony (part of Colony Capital), which continues its ambitious expansion into digital infrastructure, undeterred by the uncertainties introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital Colony is funding Vantage’s purchase of NGD from the French investment firm InfraVia Capital Partners, along with the two founders of the business. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2020. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

The acquisition provides Vantage with a huge facility, and lots of room to grow. The campus can support 180 megawatts (MW) of data center capacity, including the existing 72 MW facility and 108MW of expansion capacity.

“As the needs of our hyperscale, cloud and large enterprise customers continue to grow, Wales represents a highly attractive U.K. market offering both lower cost and greater scalability versus London,” said Sureel Choksi, the President and CEO of Vantage Data Centers. “NGD customers benefit from very low network latency to London, low power costs and excellent fiber connectivity, coupled with the company’s massively scalable campus outside London’s highly constrained M25 area.”

Plenty of Room for Growth

Located on 50-acres, the existing NGD property is a Tier III data center using 100 percent renewable energy.The huge facility was originally built in 1998 to house an LG semiconductor plant, but the company never occupied the building. NGD converted the site into a three-story data center facility with enough capacity for more than 17,000 cabinets of servers and storage. The NGD business was bought by InfraVia in 2016 for $130 million

The facility has fiber from multiple Tier 1 service providers, offering customers low latency between Wales and London of less than 1.5 milliseconds. In addition, NGD Cloud Gateway provides multiple access services, including Express Route and Connect, and NGD recently became a new hosting facility for LINX Wales. Published reports indicate NGD hosts a cloud hub for Oracle, as well as IT gear for IBM and BT.

Next Generation Data CEO Justin Jenkins will join Vantage as president, Vantage, U.K., once the acquisition closes. At NGD since its founding in 2007, Jenkins previously served as the company’s CTO and COO before being named CEO in 2018. He has also held leadership roles at Sony Computer Entertainment and several start-up technology companies.

“The NGD team is excited to join Vantage Europe given our shared commitment to operational excellence, high quality facilities and sustainable building practices,” said Jenkins. “Vantage’s global footprint and broad customer relationships, combined with NGD’s growing hyperscale and enterprise U.K. customer base, position us ideally to accelerate the investment and growth of our U.K. business.”

There have been reports that NGD was close to a sale last fall, but no deal materialized.  The company recently went public with expansion plans. submitting planning documents for four more three-story data centers at the site.

Free Resource from Data Center Frontier White Paper Library

cloud service providers
Pro Tips and Best Practices: Physical Layer Strategies for Cloud/Managed Service Providers
Successful Cloud Service Providers and Managed Service Providers need to be out in front of everything in their managed data center spaces – ensuring uptime, bandwidth, and operational/cost efficiency today, with the flexibility and scalability to adapt and expand on the fly. Physical layer and  infrastructure is the foundation on which those services are built. Get the new data center ebook from Siemon that explores pro tips and best practices for physical layer strategies for cloud and managed service providers, from zone cabling in the colocation data center to high speed interconnects in the data center.
We always respect your privacy and we never sell or rent our list to third parties. By downloading this White Paper you are agreeing to our terms of service. You can opt out at any time.

Get this PDF emailed to you.

Colony Continues to Invest

The transaction will be funded with equity commitments from Digital Colony Partners and other investors in Vantage, as well as acquisition debt financing. Marc Ganzi, the CEO of Digital Colony and CEO-elect of Colony Capital, recently indicated that the company had several deals in the works.

“Despite the current market dislocation, Digital Colony remains committed to supporting its portfolio companies.”
CEO Marc Ganzi

“The need for hyperscale data centers is more vital than ever, and we are thrilled to support Vantage Europe in its acquisition of NGD,” said Ganzi, CEO of Digital Colony and CEO-elect of Colony Capital. “Despite the current market dislocation, Digital Colony remains committed to supporting its portfolio companies and meeting the ever-increasing needs of our valued customers around the globe. This strategic acquisition advances that goal, providing Vantage Europe with immediate scale and access to significant renewable energy in the important UK market.”

The entry into Europe is the latest facet of an ambitious expansion for Vantage, which will have data center campuses in 11 markets by the end of 2020. Vantage Data Centers launched in 2010 with a campus in Santa Clara, and in 2017 was acquired by Digital Bridge to serve as a platform for a larger expansion into the wholesale data center industry.

Under the ownership of Digital Bridge (now part of the Colony Capital digital infrastructure empire) Vantage began developing large campuses in Northern Virginia and Phoenix. In 2018 Vantage acquired Canadian provider 4Degrees Colocation, providing a data center footprint in the power-rich market in Quebec. Europe was the next step.

LinkedinTwitterFacebookSubscribe
Mail

Tagged With: Colony Capital, Europe, Vantage Data Centers

Newsletters

Stay informed: Get our weekly updates!

Are you a new reader? Follow Data Center Frontier on Twitter or Facebook.

About Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Voices of the Industry

5 Ways to Mitigate Supply Chain Unpredictability and Labor Shortages in Data Center Construction

5 Ways to Mitigate Supply Chain Unpredictability and Labor Shortages in Data Center Construction Blake Weaver, Data Center Specialist at ProLift Rigging offers a list of ways to overcome supply chain challenges and labor shortages in data center construction. 

DCF Spotlight

The COVID-19 Crisis and the Data Center Industry

The COVID-19 pandemic presents strategic challenges for the data center and cloud computing sectors. Data Center Frontier provides a one-stop resource for the latest news and analysis for decision-makers navigating this complex new landscape.

An aerial view of major facilities in Data Center Alley in Ashburn, Virginia. (Image: Loudoun County)

Northern Virginia Data Center Market: The Focal Point for Cloud Growth

The Northern Virginia data center market is seeing a surge in supply and an even bigger surge in demand. Data Center Frontier explores trends, stats and future expectations for the No. 1 data center market in the country.

See More Spotlight Features

White Papers

Build-to-Suit Data Center

Case Study: Financial Services Build-to-Suit Data Center — Strength through Flexibility

In the competitive and highly regulated banking industry, demands on financial institutions come not only from customers, but from regulators and shareholders. In fact, the financial services sector is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the nation. Get the new report that shows how a collaborative partnership with Stream Data Centers gave one of the nation’s largest commercial banks the security and control of a standalone facility and the ability to specify the design, build and ongoing operation of a dedicated data center building that incorporated the most critical elements of the existing customer-built facility.

Get this PDF emailed to you.

We always respect your privacy and we never sell or rent our list to third parties. By downloading this White Paper you are agreeing to our terms of service. You can opt out at any time.

Newsletters

Get the Latest News from Data Center Frontier

Job Listings

RSS Job Openings | Peter Kazella and Associates, Inc

  • Navy Electrician / Navy Mechanic - Redmond, WA
  • Electrical Commissioning Engineer - Ashburn, VA
  • MEP Superintendent - Data Center - Dallas, TX
  • Construction Project Manager - Data Center - Dallas, TX
  • Data Center QA / QC Manager - Huntsville, AL

See More Jobs

Data Center 101

Data Center 101: Mastering the Basics of the Data Center Industry

Data Center 101: Mastering the Basics of the Data Center Industry

Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Open Spectrum, brings our readers a series that provides an introductory guidebook to the ins and outs of the data center and colocation industry. Think power systems, cooling, solutions, data center contracts and more. The Data Center 101 Special Report series is directed to those new to the industry, or those of our readers who need to brush up on the basics.

  • Data Center Power
  • Data Center Cooling
  • Strategies for Data Center Location
  • Data Center Pricing Negotiating
  • Cloud Computing

See More Data center 101 Topics

About Us

Charting the future of data centers and cloud computing. We write about what’s next for the Internet, and the innovations that will take us there. We tell the story of the digital economy through the data center facilities that power cloud computing and the people who build them. Read more ...
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

About Our Founder

Data Center Frontier is edited by Rich Miller, the data center industry’s most experienced journalist. For more than 20 years, Rich has profiled the key role played by data centers in the Internet revolution. Meet the DCF team.

TOPICS

  • 5G Wireless
  • Cloud
  • Colo
  • Connected Cars
  • Cooling
  • Cornerstone
  • Coronavirus
  • Design
  • Edge Computing
  • Energy
  • Executive Roundtable
  • Featured
  • Finance
  • Hyperscale
  • Interconnection
  • Internet of Things
  • Machine Learning
  • Network
  • Podcast
  • Servers
  • Site Selection
  • Social Business
  • Special Reports
  • Storage
  • Sustainability
  • Videos
  • Virtual Reality
  • Voices of the Industry
  • White Paper

Copyright Data Center Frontier LLC © 2021