CAPITALAND Ascendas Reit (Clar) : A17U 0% has completed the acquisition of a data centre facility in London, at the consideration of £125.1 million (S$209.4 million) based on an agreed property value of £119.4 million.

The acquired high-specification Tier III colocation data centre facility – the fifth data centre acquired by Clar in the UK – is located in north-west London.

This increases the real estate investment trust (Reit)’s data centre investments in the UK by 54 per cent to S$569.8 million, the manager said on Thursday (Aug 17).

It highlighted the facility’s strategic location in Watford – a large town situated in north-west London – as an attractive option for data centre developers in the “power-constrained and relatively high-cost” central London region.

The manager also noted the facility’s available power and strong connectivity to meet the co-location requirements of enterprises and end-users in the area.

William Tay, chief executive and executive director of the manager, said: “We expect our enlarged data centre portfolio valued at S$1.5 billion to contribute a continuous income stream towards our overall distribution per unit (DPU) growth.”

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Assuming the acquisition was completed on Jan 1, 2022, the manager estimated the transaction to improve Clar’s DPU for FY2022 by approximately S$0.0011 or 0.7 per cent.

Had the acquisition been completed on Jun 30, 2023, this would increase the proportion of data centre properties of Clar’s total investment properties from about 7 per cent to 9 per cent on a pro forma basis, the manager added.

The manager said the total acquisition cost of £128.1 million will be financed with a combination of debt financing together with proceeds from its equity fundraising announced on May 16.

Out of gross proceeds of about S$500 million, some S$129.9 million, or 26 per cent, was utilised to partially fund the acquisition.

At the time when the fundraising was announced, Clar’s manager allocated this portion of the proceeds to partially fund “a potential acquisition of an asset in a key gateway city in Europe”.

Units of Clar closed Wednesday 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 down at S$2.69.