Principal Real Estate, the real estate investment team for Principal Global Investors®, completed on 18 February the first close of its closed-end fund dedicated to acquiring data centre assets in Europe.
The initial capital raise for the Principal European Data Centre Fund (the Fund) beat its target, reaching EUR155 million. Subscriptions were received from seven investors, including asset managers, pension funds, and insurance companies located in France, Germany, Spain, and Malaysia. The amount is one-third of the total equity hard cap of EUR450 million set by Principal for the Fund.
The Fund will focus on manage-to-core data centre assets. At least 60 per cent of the fund will be allocated to the core European markets of Germany, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, and Ireland, with up to 40 per cent in secondary markets such as Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.
Principal Real Estate has global expertise investing in data centres and closed its first closed-end data centre fund in the United States in June 2021, which was oversubscribed at EUR471.4 million. Since entering the data centre market in 2007, Principal Real Estate has committed over EUR1.75 billion in data centre acquisitions and developments and owns more than EUR1.18 billion in data centre REITs.
Source: principalreeurope.com on the 23rd of February
https://www.principalreeurope.com/principal-announces-first-close-of-european-data-centre-fund/