Aligned Gets $495M Credit to Fund Data Center Construction

A group of investors has agreed to fund the next round of expansion by the Dallas-based data center provider Aligned Energy.

The company this week announced a $495 million credit facility from Goldman Sachs, CPPIB Credit Investments (subsidiary of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board), and a third, unnamed investor, described in the announcement only as “a global investment management corporation.”

Privately held Aligned did not say under what terms it was borrowing the money, but said it was “flexible, lower-cost capital.” Most of it, it appears, will be spent on data center construction in Dallas, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City.

The company recently finished construction on the first phase of an Ashburn, Virginia, data center and an expansion in the Dallas market.

More and more institutional investors have been looking to give money to data center providers of various kinds led by experienced management teams. They see skyrocketing growth by the largest cloud providers – who are the biggest data center provider customers – and the growing rate of data center outsourcing by large enterprises and want in on the action.

Data center providers with good track records have been able to both borrow at attractive rates or sell full or partial stakes in their businesses at high valuations.

Related:Infrastructure Investors Get Hungry for Data Center Deals

Led by Andrew Schaap, a former senior executive from Digital Realty Trust, Aligned has benefitted from this trend. Last year, Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, a subsidiary of the global investment banking giant Macquarie Group, bought a major stake in the company from its previously sole owner BlueMountain Capital Management.