The International Finance Corp. (IFC), the World Bank Group’s (WBG) private sector lending arm, has recently approved up to US$170 million in financing for Philippines data center platform YCO Global Cloud Centers Holdings Inc. to support the firm’s expansion in the country. The approval by the Word Bank board was made on July 28 and published on August 28, according to the World Bank board minutes.
The approved package comprises a mezzanine loan investment of up to US$20 million in YCO Cloud and senior A loans amounting up to US$150 million, to special purpose project companies owned by YCO Cloud. The YCO Catalyst Project has a total cost of about US$1.054 billion.
YCO Cloud plans to develop two data centers in Malvar town, Batangas province, with a combined capacity of 50 megawatts (MW), as well as another facility in Bataan province.
The Malvar 1 and 2 data centers, both located in an industrial park in Batangas, are already built while the Bataan facility is still in the planning stage as of May.
After the successful delivery of Malvar One, YCO Cloud’s flagship digital infrastructure project, energized just in 11 months after groundbreaking – the platform is expanding, as stated in the platform’s website a year ago. At the time, it had available utility power of 75MW with 30MW already energized.
The platform has also formed a strategic partnership with Science Park of the Philippines, Inc. (SPPI) to provide it “access to vast land to deliver massive data center capacity within the next few years,” according to the firm’s press release.
SPPI is the pioneer and largest private industrial park developer in the country with almost 1,500 hectares of total area spanning Bataan, Batangas, Clark, and other parts of Luzon.
YCO Cloud is reportedly owned by the Ynchausti family, which owns an 82-percent stake while the balance belonged to conglomerate SM Investments Corp. (SMIC).