Kirsty Barnes

Partner : Co-head of Data Centres, Simmons & Simmons

Kirsty joined Simmons & Simmons in London from a large international firm where she was head of the UK banking and finance team.  She has over 20 years of experience across the financial services sector focussing on corporate lending and leveraged finance.

Kirsty has extensive experience of working with various international financial institutions, borrowers and sponsors on a broad range of UK-centric and international financing transactions. 

She has a specific sector expertise in the TMT sector, in particular relating to Data Centres and co-heads the Simmons global data centre team.  She has worked on a variety of financing and investment transactions for both lenders and data centre owners/operators over the past 10 years.  Her CV includes all sizes of transactions – from advising on financing for a new build 2.5MW co-location data centre to advising VIRTUS Data Centres, the UK’s leading data centre operator, on its financing needs for its data halls comprising 180MW across a portfolio of UK DC campus sites.

Kirsty leads the VIRTUS Data Centres client team which has recently completed the acquisition of sites at Berlin, Germany to develop its first data centre campus outside of the UK which will deliver a total of over 350 MV.

Kirsty recently led the financing team advising Brookfield Infrastructure on its acquisition of Data4 from AXA IM.  Data4 operates 35 data centres over 6 campuses across continental Europe with 1 GW of secured power. The transaction was winner of Europe Datacentre Deal of the Year at the TMT M&A Awards EMEA 2023. Selected for size, complexity and market impact.

Working in the data centre sector during its rapid growth and acceptance as a mainstream asset class gives her a deep understanding of the financing issues facing both lenders and borrowers.