DuPont Fabros Borrows $180 Million

Data center developer DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT) has borrowed $180 million this week, and is using the money to pay off a key loan and resume construction on a new data center in northern Virginia. The company also reported strong leasing activity at data center projects in both northern Virginia and Chicago. Shares of DuPont Fabros soared 30 percent in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange, adding $1.21 to $5.23.

DuPont Fabros obtained an additional $150 million Tuesday on a loan secured by its ACC4 data center in Ashburn, Virginia, using an "accordion" feature that allowed it to access additional funds. The company used the money to pay off a $135 million construction loan for its Chicago data center, leaving it with no major debt coming due until August 2011.

Last Friday DuPont Fabros raised $30 million in new debt, which it will use to complete construction on ACC5, its next major data center in Ashburn, Virginia. Three tenants have signed leases for more than 50,000 square feet of space in ACC5, representing 57 percent of the facility's capacity. DuPont Fabros now expects to complete ACC5 during the third quarter of this year.

DuPont Fabros also has leased 11,000 square feet of space in ACC4 to Rackspace Hosting (RAX), bringing that facility to 97 percent of it capacity. The company had previously announced two leases at its CH1 facility in Elk Grove, Illinois totalling 12,500 square feet of space, or about 9.7 percent of capacity.

The leases signed during the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 comprise 14.4 megawatts of critical load and 73,874 raised square feet, and represent approximately $340 million of contract value, according to DuPont Fabros.

DuPont Fabros had seen its share price collapse to less than $2 a share late last year after it had difficulty arranging loans to fund construction projects in Silicon Valley, New Jersey and its ACC5 data center in Ashburn, Virginia. The company then halted construction on all three projects while it continued to seek financing.