A 70% share in Altice France’s data center colocation business will be sold for €535 million (about $586M) as the telecom company owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi, Altice, searches for methods to reduce debt. The data centers will now be part of UltraEdge, a newly formed business under Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners’ ownership.
The new company will be named UltraEdge, and Altice will market it as the first independent distributed data center operator in France on a national scale. It said that UltraEdge will profit from growing fiber and 5G use as well as rising need for data storage closer to the end user.
The assets that are being moved into the newly formed company include equipment and passive infrastructure found in 257 data centers, as well as associated office space located all throughout France. These assets are presently managed by SFR S.A. Ownership of servers and operational equipment would remain with the operator.
It is anticipated that the purchase would conclude in the first half of 2024, pending regulatory clearance.
Distributed Edge Colocation Provider
Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP), the private infrastructure investment division of Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM), intends to buy the majority of UltraEdge, a move that would transform the French colocation services market. This transaction is being carried out in collaboration with telecommunications firm Altice France.
“We believe the opportunity to create an independent and distributed edge colocation provider, benefiting from access to SFR’s nationwide fiber infrastructure in France, makes UltraEdge a very attractive investment for MSIP,” said Yacine Saidji, Managing Director and Co-Head of Europe for MSIP.
MSIP will partner with Altice France to continue upgrading the infrastructure and increasing the density of the portfolio, which would contribute towards establishing UltraEdge’s position as a leading provider in edge computing in France.
