Amsterdam’s Yondr to exit India’s data centre race. JV partner Everstone eyes full control.

Everstone Group has begun talks to buyout its JV partner, they added.

The joint venture announced in July 2021 was to deploy $1 billion to set up hyperscale data centre in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi.

“Yondr Group is exiting its stake in the JV and exiting the platform. Everstone Group wants to acquire this stake, with the negotiations ongoing,” said one of the two people, requesting anonymity.

Also read: Data center emerging as next big biz, Adani fast-tracks $4 billion investment

Yondr Group is a global hyperscale data centre developer, owner and operator. Singapore-headquartered Everstone has over $7 billion in assets with a focus on private equity, climate impact, logistics, digital, and venture capital.

Yondr’s decision to exit India comes amid increasing demand for data centres in the country. 

The Reserve Bank of India’s mandate on data localization has necessitated the need for large facilities to store and protect information. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has issued a similar mandate to stock exchanges, brokers, depository participants, and mutual funds.

Data localization refers to storing data on any device physically present within the borders of a country where the data is generated. Data centres provide the necessary secured architecture for this, with a concentration of computing and networking equipment for collecting, storing, processing, distributing or allowing access to large amounts of data.

Spokespersons of Yondr Group and Everstone Group did not reply to queries emailed on 25 September.

Also read | Top 5 ancillary companies driving data centre growth

A huge pipeline

India has a huge pipeline of data centres coming up. 

While the country currently has 1.011 gigawatt of installed power capacity for data centres, according to Avendus, developers have more than 3GW of capacity in the pipeline for the next 10 years, with a capital expenditure requirement of about $25 billion.

Several large Indian conglomerates including India’s largest wireless operator Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Adani Group have ambitious data centre plans.

There is also significant investor interest in India’s data centre space—a case in point being KKR, Singapore’ sovereign wealth fund GIC Holdings Pte. Ltd, and DigitalBridge Group Inc. in fray to acquire Carlyle Group’s 24.04% stake in Bharti Airtel’s data centre firm Nxtra Data Ltd at an enterprise value of about $700 million, as reported by Mint.

In August, Amazon Web Services said it was keen on significantly expanding its data centre operations in Telangana. 

Among other companies and private equity firms active in India’s data centre space are NTT Data Inc., Brookfield Infrastructure, ST Telemedia, Tata Communications Ltd, Hiranandani Group, Carlyle Group, Warburg Pincus, Blackstone, Bain Capital, and India’s quasi sovereign wealth fund—National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.