Partners Group Takes $1 Billion Stake in Backup Power Firm AVK
(Bloomberg) — The Swiss private equity firm Partners Group has agreed to buy a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a UK-based company that builds power solutions for data centers, starting with an initial investment of more than $1 billion.
The investment, in combination with debt financing accompanying the deal, will help fund AVK’s ambitions to expand internationally, Partners Group managing director Nicholas Pepper said in an interview. AVK’s management team will retain a minority stake.
AVK supplies backup electricity generators, microgrids and other power solutions for data centers, a line of business that has benefited from a trillion-dollar, worldwide buildout of the type of computing necessary to power artificial intelligence systems. The private equity world has poured hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of investments into the digital infrastructure boom. Partners Group recently held a final, $15 billion close on a fund aimed at infrastructure investments.
Securing energy for data centers is already an established business in the US, but is still a growth opportunity in Europe, Pepper said, adding that exposure to power supply is attractive because it remains a bottleneck for data center development.
Oaktree-backed data center developer Pure Data Centres Group recently announced Europe’s first large-scale data center project powered by an on-site microgrid in Dublin.
“Our new partnership with Partners Group will allow us to meet our customers exactly where the market demands,” Ben Pritchard, chief executive officer of AVK said in a statement.
Partners Group’s new infrastructure fund is more than 40% committed and includes other data center-focused power companies such as Life Cycle Power in the US, as well as Singapore-based data center platform Digital Halo, according to the firm.
While AKV’s services are not limited to data centers, the investment is a “play on the long-term view of broader growth of the digital economy,” Pepper said.
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