Principal Asset Management has closed its European data center fund.
The company this week announced the fund, dedicated to acquiring data center assets in Europe, had reached a final close total of €297 million ($314.7m).
The fund originally closed in February 2022, raising €155 million ($175.8m) and beating its initial target.
Subscriptions to the fund were received from 14 investors, including wealth managers, pension funds, and insurance companies across Europe, the US, and APAC.
Sebastian Dooley, senior fund manager at Principal Asset Management, said: “Given the highly specialized and niche nature of the data center industry, we believe experience and access are critical to successful execution. As an active commercial real estate investor for more than 60 years — including more than 14 years in the data center sector—we have witnessed the asset class evolve and adapt to the changing needs. We believe this final close solidifies our strong position as we continue our acquisition plans across Europe.”
The fund is focused on manage-to-core data center assets; at least 60 percent of the fund is allocated to the core European markets of Germany, Netherlands, France, the UK, and Ireland, with the rest aimed at secondary markets such as Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.
To date, the Fund has acquired five assets, located in Barcelona; the UK; Amsterdam; Dublin, and Frankfurt.
Last month Principal acquired two data centers in Ireland. The company paid €10 million ($10.74m) to acquire two facilities on the Willsborough Industrial Estate in Clonshaugh. Spanning a total of 7,570 sqm (81,480 sq ft), the facilities are leased to Verizon and Vodafone.
The company recently announced plans to acquire and convert a logistics facility in Amsterdam into a 42MW data center for Dutch operator Switch Datacenters.
2022 saw Principal acquire an Atlas Edge-occupied facility in Barcelona, Spain, as well as a Getronics-occupied data center in Cheshire, UK.
Last year saw Principal partner with Lincoln Rackhouse to acquire a data center in Atlanta, Georgia.
The two companies have partnered on a number of data center projects, in 2019 acquiring colocation, and managed services company Bytegrid together. In 2021, Lincoln sold a T-Mobile data center in Florida to a group owned by Principal Real Estate Investors.
This year Principal partnered with new US operator Crane Data Centers which is planning a 100MW campus in the Forest Grove area of Oregon.
The company closed its first dedicated US data center fund in 2021.
