Spanish telco Telefónica and infrastructure investment firm Asterion Industrial Partners are reportedly set to sell Spanish data center operator Nabiax.

Expansión reports the companies are gearing up to divest Nabiax and have tapped BBVA and Citi as advisors.

The companies plan to launch a sale process in June, and are seeking around €1 billion ($1bn) for the operator.

Reports that Telefónica and Asterion were exploring a sale surfaced last year.

These plans were reportedly temporarily paused earlier this year 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 Telefonica 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.