Digital Realty Buying Brazilian Data Center Firm Ascenty for $1.8B

Digital Realty Trust is acquiring Ascenty, which provides data centers in Brazil for some of the world’s largest hyperscale cloud platforms.

The $1.8 billion deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, is yet another move by San Francisco-based Digital to dominate the business of leasing massive data centers to cloud giants. Its previous acquisition, last year’s $7.8 billion takeover of DuPont Fabros Technology, instantly made it the biggest player in Northern Virginia, the biggest market for hyperscale data centers.

News that Digital and Ascenty were in acquisition talks leaked earlier this year.

Leading global hyperscale cloud providers make up most of Ascenty’s customer base, Digital said in a statement. As of the end of the second quarter, the largest cloud providers by market share were Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Alibaba, according to estimates by Synergy Research Group.

Ascenty has about 40MW of data center capacity currently in service across eight data centers, 34MW under construction, and enough real estate to build an additional 33MW. Its data centers are in São Paulo, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, and Fortaleza.

These will be Digital’s first assets in Latin America. The developer’s footprint so far has consisted of data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Half of the acquisition will be funded by Brookfield Infrastructure, an affiliate of Brookfield Asset management, one of the world’s largest owners and operators of infrastructure assets. In exchange for its $613 million, Brookfield will hold 49 percent of the joint venture expected to be formed to own Ascenty. Digital will own the rest.

Digital’s stock was down 4 percent after hours Monday following the announcement, trading at $115.92.