Next Generation Data Ponders IPO

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An exterior view of the Next Generation Data Ltd. facility in Newport, Wales.

Next Generation Data Ltd. is considering a public stock offering on  the London stock market early next year to raise funds to build out additional space at the company's huge data center in Newport, Wales.

The 750,000 square foot facility - one of the world's largest data centers - was completed in February, just four months after Next Generation Data (NGD) said it had secured “significant” debt financing from a unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland to complete construction on the tenant space in the facility.

NGD chief executive Nick Razey told the Financial Times that the company is in talks with major U.S. software and banking companies seeking large footprints for data center space. But that would require additional construction funds, so the company has hired KPMG as its financial advisors.

“We’re looking at a stock market flotation in the first or second quarter of next year,” Mr Razey told the FT.

The news of a potential flotation from Next Generation Data follows a flurry of IPO announcements for data center companies in the first half of 2010, with Telx, CoreSite and Interxion among the companies contemplating selling stock.

The company has two brand-name tenants in BT and Logica, which each occupy data halls at the NGD data center. The huge facility was built to house an LG semiconductor plant, but was vacated shortly after it was completed in 1998. NGD has converted the site into a three-story data center facility that will feature more than 375,000 square feet of technical space, enough capacity for more than 19,000 cabinets of servers and storage.

The data center is designed to accommodate private data center pods, and also has shell space to accommodate data center container installations