French telco Iliad is close to selling a minority stake in its Opcore data center unit.
Local press in France report Antin Infrastructure, Morrison, and InfraVia Capital are interested in acquiring a 49 percent stake in the subsidiary and have been shortlisted as potential bidders.
The investment would value Opcore between €700 million and $1bn, with Iliad said to be pushing closer to the latter figure.
The investor will also have to commit to investing $2.5 billion over ten years to fuel the operator's growth.
Opcore was formed last year after Iliad separated its data center business from its Scaleway cloud unit. The company has six data centers across Paris, one each in Lyon and Marseille, and seven in Poland. The portfolio totals around 131MW, including in-development projects.
The Paris sites were inherited from Scaleway, while the Lyon and Marseille sites were likely inherited from Iliad-owned MSP Jaguar Network (now known as Free Pro). The Polish sites were taken from Iliad’s Play/3S units.
News surfaced in January that Iliad was seeking an investment partner for Opcore; at the time the company was said to be offering a stake in 14 of 15 Opcore data centers – reportedly eight in France and seven in Poland.
Iliad has previously said it intends to invest €2.5 billion ($2.71bn) into Opcore alongside a future financial partner. The company also hinted that it would invest in “opportunistic M&A.”
Antin currently owns UK data center operator Pulsant. InfraVia owns Swiss operator Green, while Morrison owns infrastructure fund Infratil, which has invested in UK data center firm Kao Data. The company has also invested in CDC Data Centers, Vodafone New Zealand, and Dutch fiber firm Fore Freedom.
Scaleway – formerly Online SAS/Online.net – was founded as a hosting company in 1999. The company launched a colocation division after acquiring Alice ADSL from Telecom Italia’s French unit in 2008.
The data center unit can trace its roots back to ISDnet in 1999. The company was first bought by Cable & Wireless in 2000, then Tiscali France in 2003. Tiscali’s French operations were then sold to Telecom Italia’s French subsidiary Alice in 2005, before being bought by Iliad three years later.
