Tritax Big Box taps investors for £350m London data centre splurge
Listed real estate investor Tritax Big Box has revealed plans to raise £350m through a new share issue to pump into the construction of London data centres.
The FTSE 100 company told investors it had nearly doubled its pipeline of grid connection agreements to 507 megawatts and would use the fresh funding to “unlock the next wave of data centre growth” for the company. Companies must secure power agreements with the grid operator prior to launching new schemes.
“With such an acute shortage of power in the Greater London Availability Zones, we expect to see significant occupational interest in these schemes,” chief executive Colin Godfrey said.
The cash will finance the development of two new data centre projects, set for completion by 2031, which will provide computational capacity to London. The two schemes could deliver £50-60m of incremental rent and between £300-400m of capital profit to the company, Tritax said.
Retail investors will be able to back the raise via an offer on investment platform Retailbook.
Cash has been pouring into the data centre market in recent years as the rise of AI fuels a wave of demand for computational capacity.
Data centers are projected to require $6.7 trillion worldwide to keep pace with the demand for compute power, according to research by McKinsey. Those equipped to handle the required load for AI processing will require $5.2 trillion in capital expenditure, while $1.2 trillion will be needed to cater to traditional IT focused data centres, the consultancy said.