Investment firms Goldman Sachs, Wren House, and Igneo have been lined up as potential suitors for Spanish data center firm Nabiax.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports the infrastructure arm of Goldman Sachs Group, Wren House Infrastructure, and Igneo Infrastructure Partners have been shortlisted to buy Nabiax by its current owners, private equity firm Asterion Industrial Partners and telecom operator Telefonica.
The sellers are reportedly seeking a valuation upwards of €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for Nabiax.
Discussions are ongoing. The companies involved declined to comment to Bloomberg.
Others said to have an interest in Nabiax include Antin Infrastructure Partners, Blackstone, Brookfield Asset Management, CDPQ, DigitalBridge, EQT, Omers, PFA, and Vauban Infrastructure Partners.
Reports that Telefónica and Asterion were exploring a sale surfaced last year, and then again in May of this year.
Last year’s plans were reportedly temporarily paused while the companies were in negotiations with Microsoft, with hopes a leasing deal would increase Nabiax’s market value. Nabiax has reportedly been hosting Microsoft since 2020, and has similar deals in place with Amazon and Google.
Nabiax was formed by Asterion Industrial Partners in 2019 after it bought 11 data centers from Telefónica for €550 million ($616 million). The deal totaled 29MW across seven countries: two each in Argentina, Brazil, Spain, and Peru, with additional individual sites in Chile, Mexico, and the US. Nabiax was then created to offer colocation and hosting services across Spain and Latin America.
In May 2021 Telefónica announced it had sold a further four data centers to Asterion Industrial Partners in exchange for a 20 percent stake in its Nabiax hosting business: two facilities in Chile and two Spanish sites in Madrid and Terrassa.
Last year, Asterion and Telefónica began selling off parts of Nabiax, with Actis acquiring 11 of its data centers in Latin America in March 2023.
Today, Nabiax currently lists three data centers on its website; two in Madrid and one in Barcelona.
Part of First Sentier Investors, Igneo manages $16.5bn in mid-market infrastructure assets across Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The company has previously invested in New Zealand telco Tuatahi First Fibre and US data center firm US Signal.
Wren House was established in 2013 as a direct infrastructure investments arm of the Kuwait Investment Authority. Its investments include Phoenix Tower International and i3 Broadband.
Goldman Sachs digital infrastructure investments include Polish data center operator Atman, Iowa Internet services providers (ISP) ImOn Communications, Global Compute, and Brazil’s Elea Digital.
