Cushman & Wakefield
DATA CENTRE ADVISORY

EMEA DATA CENTRE UPDATE - SPRING/SUMMER 2020

Half a gigawatt is under construction across the European FLAP-D markets, as cloud adoption across the continent pushes hyperscale development for the largest deployments. Many large operators have secured new investors for further expansion as the race to develop fully continental platforms continues.

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OUR SERVICES

Transactional Services

TRANSACTIONS

There are a multitude of possible transactions with data centres, buying, selling, leasing, scaling and transition to Cloud. The DCA team have the experience and the market data to assist you, save you money and ensure a positive outcome for your data centre transaction.

Consultancy Services

CONSULTANCY

Data centres are valuable and expensive assets, costly mistakes can be made if decisions are taken without adequate data. Enterprises, investors and even data centre operators may not have the required local knowledge or specialist personnel to inform these decisions. The DCA team can help by giving specialist advice when you need it.

Valuation Professional Services

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

We offer a wide range of services that can help you verify the value of a data centre, validate the quality of service and capabilities of a facility and ensure that it is run efficiently and cost effectively. Additionally we can help you manage any change between facilities and enhance or exit from an existing asset.

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Our Data Centre Advisory Group provides strategic advice and real estate services to occupiers, landlords, investors and operators within the niche real estate asset class of data centres.

TRANSACTIONS

DISPOSAL

Understanding the Data Centre market is key to helping you realise the maximum value of data centre assets for disposal. The value of a Data Centre is influenced considerably by factors such as location, power allocation, installed infrastructure and market supply and demand. We provide detailed analysis of all potential disposal options where clients are considering retaining IT capacity, whether it be under a lease or services agreement, to ensure the outcome meets with key objectives.Positioning the opportunity to attract the optimal purchaser or partner is key, investors, operators and enterprises have very dierent requirements. The Data Centre Advisory group are well equipped to provide expert advice and up to the minute market information to guide the disposal process

ACQUISITION

Acquiring new Data Centre capacity needs the assistance of an experienced team. Mistakes made with poorly thought out acquisitions can have long term and expensive impacts. For an enterprise matching your requirement to the right colocation provider is key, our knowledge and selection tools in site analysis and RFI/RFP processes can ensure a very positive financial, technical and operational outcome. Often decisions are made based on brand rather than the key services required. If you are an investor you may be seeking opportunities to purchase and lease back to existing occupiers or as an operator you may want the same but with low cost latent capacity. Our market knowledge can match your requirements with on and o market availability.

TRANSITION

When exiting or reducing capacity in an existing Data Centre a number of options are available. Rapid migration to Cloud based services is the most common but not all IT services can make the transition and for some, security requirements and scale may mean that cloud is not the optimal outcome. We can provide timely and valuable assistance.

CO-LOCATION

Today it is less likely that corporations will wish to construct their own Data Centre facility as a number of very high-quality specialist colocation vendors exist that build at scale and can provide a range of capacities and facilities to suit most applications. This shifts the financial planning from very large capex to a much lower opex that can have built-in flexibility introducing cost agility in a rapidly changing IT environment. In addition, the colocation landscape has changed from 10+ year commitments to flexible contracts bringing further savings and reducing financial risk.
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Timely advice and great market data can make a big difference to an investment decision, let our experts give you the edge.

CONSULTANCY

BENCHMARKING

There are several key metrics for the efficiency and performance of a data centre. Getting to the real data can be challenging and understanding how one data centre compares to another even more difficult. We have the experience and the market data to allow a real comparison of a facility to the current norm and to other available capacity.

STRATEGIC ADVICE

The DCA team can provide a wide range of strategic advice to investors, operators or enterprise clients. Valuation, market data, competitive information, transactions and infrastructure knowledge enables our advisors to help you set out your data centre strategy. Aligning with your goals we can close knowledge gaps and advise on market trends which can prevent costly errors and ensure successful outcomes.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

IT real estate assets are rarely as simple as one data centre, often there are geographically diverse locations, differing scale operations and assets gained as a result of mergers and acquisitions. We provide a range of services to help to manage these portfolios: Lease restructuring, Benchmarking, Cost reduction, Colocation supplier selection and Performance monitoring especially for SLA breaches.

INVESTOR SERVICES

Cushman & Wakefield provide a number of services including investment marketing & sales, acquisitions and support investment decisions, whether pure data centre assets or businesses through comprehensive due diligence processes. The factors that determine, or not, the value of a data centre investment may not be immediately obvious and require the experience and knowledge that C&W can provide.Considerations such as quality of income (lease term, tenant covenant) vs. capital value, rent vs. specification and tenant lease renewal probability can be critical when evaluating an investment opportunity. Likewise demand, market suitability, business plan, services and management team will determine viability in any business acquisition.

SITE SELECTION

Selecting a site for your data centre is a critical decision with long term financial and operational implications. For many businesses it is not a decision that is made frequently and therefore the experience required is probably not internally available. The DCA team have the knowledge, analysis tools and process models to inform your decision making and help you choose the perfect Data Centre.

SOURCING & PRE-SCREENING

IT real estate assets are rarely as simple as one data centre, often there are geographically diverse locations, differing scale operations and assets gained as a result of mergers and acquisitions. We provide a range of services to help to manage these portfolios: Lease restructuring, Benchmarking, Cost reduction, Colocation supplier selection and Performance monitoring especially for SLA breaches.
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PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

VALUATION

Understanding the value of an asset you own or confirming the value of something you are considering buying is a key reassurance in any transaction. We have the experience and market data to inform your decisions or reassure your investors for loan security, financial reporting or IPO.

ELECTRICAL, MECHANICAL & BUILDING

Data centres can be complex and claims about capacity and resilience sometimes exaggerated, we can undertake detailed assessments of mechanical and electrical systems as well as scrutinise service capabilities. Verifying this data can be critical for cost management, quality assurance or risk mitigation purposes.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT & CONSULTANCY

If you are moving data centres, transitioning to cloud or changing providers we have the programme management skills to ensure that your project gets delivered successfully. We can also provide consultancy for planning and consultation for building changes as well as building surveys and dilapidations assessments.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

We know what it takes to manage a data centre, we have the experience to help you procure the best FM management services for your facility and ensure that the centre is run efficiently with energy management and sustainability credentials.
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CONTACT

Valuation Professional Services

STEPHEN KIRBY

Partner
Data Centre Advisory
Direct: +44 (0)121 697 7299
Mobile: +44 (0)7786 118404
stephen.kirby@cushwake.com

© 2019 Cushman & Wakefield

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November 2019