Mapletree Industrial Trust (MIT) has acquired a newly-built data center in Osaka, Japan for JPY 52 billion (about USD 248 million).
According to MIT’s manager, the acquisition was through the purchase of a conditional trust beneficial interest and share agreement with Suma Tokutei Mokuteki Kaisha, an unrelated third-party vendor.
With more than 3GW of total IT load, MIT will be acquiring a 98.47% interest in the facility. With this investment, MIT officially enters the Japanese data center industry.
The Singapore-listed trust intends to finance the total acquisition through a combination of debt and proceeds from an equity fundraising. It has issued a private placement to raise SGD 200 million (USD 148 million).
MIT CEO Tham Kuo Wei said the proposed acquisition offered a strategic opportunity to diversify MIT’s data center presence into Japan, one of the most developed data center markets in Asia-Pacific.
Japan will make up around 5.5% of MIT’s S$9.3 billion in assets under management after the acquisition, with Singapore and North America accounting for the rest 47.6% and 46.9%, respectively.
The Japan data center market is primarily concentrated in the Tokyo and Osaka regions which house over 75% of the existing capacity.
Earlier this year several data center operators have developed and announced their plans to build data centers in the said regions.
In Osaka, OPTAGE has announced plans to build its fifth data center in the region. MC Digital Realty also announced the official opening of its fourth building on the 23,000sqm Osaka data center campus.
Moreover, Colt DCS launched a major data center in Osaka Keihanna which marks the company’s expansion strategy.
