International investment manager Amber Infrastructure Group has increased its critical digital infrastructure portfolio, acquiring a majority stake in leading Australian data centre platform iseek.
iseek has five purpose-built data centres across Brisbane, Northern Queensland and Sydney, and provides cloud and connectivity services to enterprise and government customers. Its existing management team, led by CEO and shareholder-founder Jason Gomersall, will remain with the business.
The transaction marks Amber’s first digital infrastructure investment in Australia, where the fund currently manages 10 investments in over A$7bn of assets, including the Royal Children’s Hospital, Orange Hospital, Gold Coast Light Rail, and a portfolio of schools in NSW and Victoria.
Headquartered in the UK with operations in the US and Europe, Amber is increasingly focused on sourcing investment opportunities in the Asia Pacific region with iseek adding to the high-quality digital investments Amber already manages globally. These include Greenergy, a recently acquired data centre platform in Central and Eastern Europe, and as manager to the National Digital Infrastructure Fund in the UK.
Amber’s Head of Asia-Pacific, Vaughan Wallace, said: “This transaction is a significant milestone for Amber and is testament to the strength of Amber’s origination capability and expertise. iseek presents an excellent investment opportunity to support a high-quality, local platform to grow its digital infrastructure service offering in markets underpinned by strong demand dynamics, which have been further amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Amber has a broad investment focus internationally across super core, core, core plus and value-add infrastructure. Active locally since 2006, Amber’s Australian team is now increasingly focused across Asia Pacific on mid-market core and core plus infrastructure, including critical digital infrastructure, in line with Amber’s global strategy and expertise.”
CEO of iseek, Jason Gomersall, said: “I am delighted by Amber’s investment in iseek and regard it as a significant endorsement of the robust, high-growth platform that we have built over many years. The depth of Amber’s local and global expertise in digital infrastructure and track record as a long-term manager and developer of key infrastructure assets means they are an ideal partner for iseek as we pursue our next phase of growth.”