Figtree to enter Australian data centre market with 27.5% stake in DC Alliance

CATALIST-LISTED Figtree Holdings' wholly-owned subsidiary Figtree Real Estate will be acquiring a 27.5 per cent interest in DC Alliance for A$2.75 million (about S$2.74 million) in cash, making this its first strategic investment in a data centre.

DC Alliance is a Singapore incorporated company that, through its wholly-owned subsidiary DCA 1, holds a 100 per cent interest in Pier DC, a Western Australian company that designs, builds and operates Tier-certified data centres in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Pier DC currently owns and operates a ready-for-service Tier III co-location data centre in Perth's Canning Vale industrial area, said to be the only facility of its kind south of the Perth central business district. Built about four years ago, the facility has a technical area of 2,200 sq m with a capacity for 1,000 racks and up to eight MW of power.

Pier DC is also an approved member of the Australian government's GovNext-ICT (information and communications technology) programme, with most of its existing customers mainly from the government segment.

With this deal, Figtree will be granted a board seat in DC Alliance and all its subsidiaries.

Danny Siaw, managing director of Figtree, said: "Through this investment, Figtree now holds a strategic stake in a ready-for-service Tier III data centre in Perth, a growing regional innovation hub due to its new high speed, high capacity undersea data cables that link it to Asia."

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"We believe that this positions Figtree well to ride on the vibrant demand for data centres in Australia, which is on the rise due to growing trends in cloud adoption, demand for smart devices as well as wireless networking technologies," he added.

Australia's data centre market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.4 per cent to reach A$6 billion between 2020 and 2025, according to a report by Research and Markets. Australia is also among the top five countries in the world to implement government policies and regulations for cloud adoption, which drives data centre investments in the country.