Latham & Watkins Advises Macquarie Asset Management in Largest-Ever Global Data Center Transaction

Macquarie Asset Management, on behalf of two of its privately managed infrastructure funds along with its co-invest partners, announced that it has agreed to the sale of Aligned Data Centers to a consortium of investors comprising the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), MGX, and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners. The transaction implies an enterprise value of approximately US$40 billion, making it the largest to date for global data centers. Under Macquarie Asset Management’s ownership, Aligned has expanded from two operational facilities in Dallas and Phoenix and 85 MW of critical capacity to become a leading hyperscale data center specialist with over 5 GW of capacity across 50 data centers under management and future development in the United States, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. Aligned has also obtained the first-ever green data center securitization, and first-ever sustainability-linked financing for a data center platform.

Latham & Watkins LLP represents Macquarie Asset Management in the transaction with a corporate deal team led by New York partners David Beller and Jason Webber, with associates Daniel Weissman, Sofia Skara, Emma Giusto, and Rheem Brooks. Advice was provided on Latin America corporate/M&A matters by New York partner Tony Del Pino and Washington, D.C. partner Carlos Ardila; on executive compensation, employment, and benefits matters by New York partner Bradd Williamson, with associates Megan Ampe and assistance from Kayla Snyder; on tax matters by Bay Area partner Katharine Moir and Los Angeles partner Ana O'Brien, with associates Arash Lotfi and Alice Chen; on sanctions and export controls matters by Washington, D.C. partner Andrew Galdes, with associate Matthew Gregory; on intellectual property matters by New York partner Jessica Cohen, with associate Ece Gonulal; on compliance matters by Washington, D.C. partner Joseph Bargnesi, with associate Faiza Hasan; on data privacy and cybersecurity matters by Houston partner Robert Brown, with associate Stuart Cobb; on US antitrust matters by Washington, D.C. partners Mandy Reeves and Caitlin Fitzpatrick, with associates Doug Tifft and Seamus Ronan; on HSR matters by Washington, D.C. partner Peter Todaro, with associate Ben Bouwman; on ex-US antitrust/FDI matters by Hamburg partner Jana Dammann de Chapto and Frankfurt partner Max Hauser, with associates Judith Jacop, Enno Mensching, Niklas Brüggemann, and Helena Hofmann; on finance matters by New York partner Stephanie Teicher, with associate Amrita Mukherjee; on investment funds matters by New York partner Matthew Chase, with associates Mario Richards, Benjamin Hoekstra, Victoria Cappucci, and Molly Nelson; on labor and employment matters by Chicago partner Nineveh Alkhas, with associate Elizabeth Duncan; on real estate matters by Chicago counsel Dustin Paige; and on environmental matters by New York counsel David Langer.

Latham & Watkins previously represented Macquarie Asset Management in arranging over US$5 billion of primary equity co-investments into Aligned Data Centers and team-lead Jason Webber represented Macquarie Asset Management funds in their initial acquisition of Aligned Data Centers and the buy-out of the original investors.