DLA Piper advises Digital 9 Infrastructure plc in the acquisition of Ficolo Oy and Volta Data Centres

DLA Piper has advised Digital 9 Infrastructure plc on the acquisition of two data centre firms: leading Finnish data centre and cloud services provider Ficolo Oy from Pontos Oy, Taaleri Datacenter Ky and other sellers, and the London based GAData Holdings Limited, trading as Volta Data Centres. The strategic acquisitions are valued at EUR135 million and GBP45 million, respectively.

Ficolo’s ultra-modern infrastructure is industry-leading in terms of energy efficiency and environmental credentials. It uses 100% renewable power and distributing surplus heat to district heating networks, and has data centres in Helsinki, Pori, and Tampere in Finland. Volta Data Centres, with its wholly owned 6 MW, 91,000 sq. ft. London facility, offers low latency colocation services from a key strategic location in the capital.

The Ficolo acquisition supports Digital 9's environmentally sustainable data centre strategy, which focuses on shifting the energy-intensive processing of growing data sets to the Nordics, delivering green data centre solutions in a geographically optimal environment.

Thor Johnsen, Head of Digital Infrastructure at Triple Point Investment Management LLP, comments: “With Ficolo, D9 now has one of the premier pan-European authentically green data-centre portfolios, benefiting from the less volatile, less carbon-intensive green energy supplies of the Nordics. Transitioning data centre services to our green data centre portfolio is not just a question of improving sustainability, but also benefiting from lower cost and less volatile power prices. The combined portfolio's long track record of high-quality operations across the Nordics provides a significant growth opportunity to continue to invest and monetise capacity to local and international customers.”

The Volta acquisition has now closed, while Ficolo is expected to complete later this year following customary regulatory approval.

The DLA Piper team in Helsinki was led by corporate partner Salla Tuominen, and included partners Mika Oinonen and Tuija Kaijalainen, counsels Essi Lavikkala and Jouko Markkanen, senior associate Tuukka Toropainen, as well as associates Teemu Pitkäniemi, Juulia Järvilehto, Joel Nurmi, Auriina Holck and Sanna Rautio. The team in London was led by partner Mark Chivers and associate Irvin Shirvani.