Global Switch

Global Switch

global switch logoThe Reuben Brothers (RB) fully acquired Global Switch in 2007 and began the company’s transformational journey. Through their strategic direction and investment, Global Switch became the leading owner, operator and developer of large scale network dense, carrier and cloud neutral multi-tenanted data centres in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Under RB’s full control,  Global Switch became the highest credit rated data centre company in the world in 2014, when Fitch upgraded the company’s credit rating to BBB+ from BBB, and Moody’s upgraded its long term issuer rating to Baa2 from Baa3.  In April 2011 the company unveiled its inaugural bond offer when strong investor appetite increased the issue size to €600 million.  In December 2013, Global Switch raised its first Sterling bond for £300m & its first Australian bond for $100m.

RB sold 49% of its equity in December 2016 to a consortium of leading Chinese corporate and institutional investors, then a further 24.99% stake in July 2018 to another consortium comprised of follow-on investors and new stakeholders, then finally 24.01% in August 2019 to Shagang Group the largest privately owned steel maker in China.

The company had an unrivalled track record in delivering best-in-class data centre solutions. The data centres were exclusively located in Tier 1 markets, which are key business and connectivity hubs, close to central business districts.

Global Switch was a strategic partner for customers that require data centre capacity with redundant 24x7x365 power and cooling, high levels of connectivity, security and sophisticated infrastructure and environmental monitoring to house their computer servers, network equipment and IT infrastructure. Global Switch’s customers were global to national, large and small including government organisations, financial institutions, enterprises, cloud service providers, global systems integrators, telecommunication carriers, managed service providers and other hosting businesses.

At a Glance at Exit

  • Twelve world class data centres in key markets: seven were located in Europe – in London (two), Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris (two) and Madrid – with data centres in Hong Kong, Singapore (two) and Sydney(two) serving the Asia-Pacific market
  • Four new data centres were planned (with Hong Kong and Frankfurt North under construction), two data centres with power densificaton projects (London North underway) and development opportunities in Shanghai
  • Joint venture agreement entered into with Daily-Tech Beijing Co., Ltd to develop a new data centre in Shanghai
  • 4m sq ft (365,000 sq m) of gross area across the portfolio
  • All data centres were owned or on long term leases
  • Investment grade credit ratings received from Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s
  • Unrivalled power with multiple layers of redundancy
  • Network dense, low latency environments
  • State of the art security and monitoring systems in place 24x7x365
  • Data centres were operated to a Tier III+ standard
  • Better than 99.999% historical uptime reliability across the portfolio
  • Customer base included many of the world’s leading companies, diversified by both industry and geography
  • Strong management team with significant industry experience
  • Best-in-class operating procedures and practices, including ISO 9001, 14001, 18001, 27001, 45001 and 5001 certifications for data centres

Developments at Exit

The data centre industry had experienced significant growth in recent years and continued to experience considerable demand for space due to a number of factors including: the growth of the internet, rising numbers of users who were expecting more on demand information and richer content, the increase of cloud computing technology, the continued growth of outsourcing, and the on-going introduction of regulation and legislation around the storage of data.

Global Switch was part way through a significant global expansion plan with the scope to double the aggregate power capacity available across the portfolio. Following completion of the first stages of a planned major expansion to its Amsterdam data centre in January 2014, the Tier III+ Sydney East data centre in August 2014, first stage of the new Hong Kong data centre in December 2017, the second data centre in Singapore located in the Woodlands district debuted in March 2019.  Further developments were also underway in both existing and new markets including:

Amsterdam

Global Switch was planning to expand its existing Amsterdam data centre by a further 28,000 sq m (300,000 sq ft) which would increase the overall size to 69,000 sq m (740,000 sq ft) with 100MVA of utility power supply capacity.

Frankfurt

Global Switch had started construction of its second data centre, Frankfurt North, on its existing campus following a substantial pre-commitment with Daily-Tech Beijing Co. Ltd.  This new data centre was expected to adjoin the existing Frankfurt South data centre by a shared reception and provide 11,000 sq m (115,000 sq ft) gross space with 14MVA of utility power supply capacity.  Frankfurt North was due to launch in 2019.

Hong Kong

Following a major pre-commitment with Daily-Tech Beijing Co. Ltd, (whose end customer was China Telecom Global) Global Switch launched the first stage (Buildings 1 & 2) of its new Tier III+ data centre in Hong Kong, located on the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate. The data centre which marked the company’s entry to the Hong Kong market became the eleventh in Global Switch’s portfolio. The data centre was scheduled to offer 71,000 sq m (765,000 sq ft) gross space with 100MVA of utility power once all stages were complete. The world class data centre had been designed to best-in-class environmental credentials and is targeting a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Rating and a Hong Kong Green Building Council’s BEAM Plus Platinum rating.  Due to customer demand, Building 3, 4 and 5 were under construction with Building 3 due to launch in 2019 and the remaining space in 2020.

Click here to visit website www.globalswitch.com