HMC Capital announced it has entered into agreements to acquire iseek, a leading Australian co-location data center operating platform, as part of an A$400 million deal.
This acquisition is consistent with HMC’s recently announced strategy of establishing a Global Digital Infrastructure Platform (DigiCo). HMC has now secured A$2.5 billion of strategic operating assets in Australia and is in exclusive due diligence on an additional $1.6 billion of data center assets located in North America.
These acquisitions will seed an ASX-listed DigiCo Infrastructure REIT (DigiCo REIT) with over A$4 billion of AUM.
The A$400 million figure represents 19 times the CY25 EBITDA forecast. This acquisition consideration will be in the form of A$150 million upfront cash and A$250 million of scrip in the DigiCo REIT IPO, which major shareholders and founders have agreed to escrow the majority of until the release of the FY25 and FY26 results.
This deal provides HMC with a scalable co-location data center platform with 6MW of Installed IT capacity across seven operating facilities located across Queensland, South Australia, and New South Wales and a 27.6MW development pipeline of future expansion featuring over 500 customers across government, enterprise, and hyperscale tenants.
HMC Capital has an existing strategy of establishing the ASX-listed DigiCo REIT by calendar year end, which remains on-track with the intention to raise about A$2.6 billion of new equity which will be seeded with over A$4 billion of AUM at an implied FY25 EV/EBITDA multiple of 26.1 times.
HMC Capital will be investing a minimum of A$500 million in DigiCo REIT. And following a recent successful $300 million equity raising and $150 million upsize in HMC’s corporate credit facility, HMC has sufficient asset-level financing and balance sheet liquidity to underwrite the
acquisition of the proposed DigiCo seed assets.
iseek features a portfolio of seven co-location data centers principally located across Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales in Australia.
KEY QUOTES:
“iseek is a leading colocation data centre platform with a high quality and diverse customer base across government, hyperscale and enterprise customers. This acquisition is also highly complementary to our recent acquisition of Global Switch Australia with a number of benefits including enhanced geographic and customer diversification. The DigiCo platform will have over 100 dedicated people across iseek, Global Switch Australia and StratCap, and represents the beginning of our strategy to build a world-class operating platform providing investors with exposure to institutional grade digital infrastructure assets in both Australia and North America.”
- HMC Managing Director and CEO, David Di Pilla
“We are excited to be partnering with HMC Capital’s DigiCo platform to accelerate iseek’s next phase of growth. A significant portion of the acquisition proceeds will be taken in scrip in the DigiCo Infrastructure REIT IPO which is a testament to our strong conviction in the REIT’s investment strategy and growth runway.”
- iseek Chief Executive Officer, Scott Hicks, and Founder & Executive Director, Jason Gomersall
