Billionaire Patrick Drahi has started gauging interest from potential investors in a portfolio of French data centers, people with knowledge of the matter said.
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Patrick Drahi has started gauging interest from potential investors in a portfolio of French data centers, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The telecom mogul’s Altice France has sent preliminary information on the data centers to potential bidders as it prepares to kick off the sale of a stake in the assets, the people said. A deal could value the portfolio at about €1 billion ($1.1 billion), according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
Altice may seek initial expressions of interest early next year for the assets, which are likely to draw interest from infrastructure funds, the people said. The exact structure of a potential transaction hasn’t been finalized, and Altice may decide to keep a stake in the portfolio in any deal, the people said.
Drahi’s Altice Portugal is also exploring a possible divestment of its Covilha data center operation, which could fetch roughly €200 million, the people said.
Data centers have been attracting interest globally as infrastructure funds amass ever-bigger pools of capital and seek investments that can take advantage of booming demand for cloud services.
Private equity firms including PAG have been pursuing UK data center company Global Switch Holdings Ltd., which could be valued at $10 billion in any deal, Bloomberg News has reported. US infrastructure firms DigitalBridge Group Inc. and Equinix Inc. have also been hunting for acquisitions.
TMT Finance first reported last month that Drahi was considering a sale of the data centers in France, citing unidentified people. Deliberations are ongoing, and there’s no certainty they will lead to a transaction. A representative for Altice declined to comment.
Drahi was gauging potential interest in his Portuguese unit last year, though a deal didn’t materialize. Altice USA Inc. said this month it decided not to sell its Suddenlink business, after earlier exploring a deal that could have valued the cable and internet service provider at about $20 billion.
–With assistance from Julien Ponthus.
(Updates with background on data center deals in paragraphs 5-6.)
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