Helping a leading European hyperscale data-centre provider to obtain investor financing for future expansion

“Our client has ambitions to become a significant European data-centre platform. This transaction creates a strategic partnership with an important outside investor that can help realise its larger, long-term plans.” 

- Stéphane Piot, Partner, Head of Analysys Mason France

The challenge

Our client sought an investment partner to support the expansion of its data-centre platform 

Our client, OpCore, was created in June 2023 as the data-centre infrastructure carve-out of Iliad Group. The new entity operates a portfolio of 14 data-centre sites in France and Poland. OpCore currently serves a broad range of clients, including hyperscalers and artificial intelligence (AI) companies.

Iliad was looking for a strategic investor to develop new facilities as it wished to capitalise on the rapidly growing European data-centre market, which is expanding at an estimated rate of 20% per annum. 

The project lasted more than a year and was complex, with numerous dependencies. Our management of these dependencies helped to ensure the project’s success. 

Our approach

Analysys Mason’s support covered detailed commercial and technical analysis and required thorough, flexible and highly personalised services

OpCore commissioned us to provide a comprehensive commercial and technical due diligence of its operations and expansion strategy. 

Currently, Opcore operates seven data centres in France: five in the Paris area, one in Marseille and one in Lyon. It has another seven in Poland. The portfolio’s capacity is expected to quadruple in the next few years thanks to this investment.  

We examined the commercial landscape of the data-centre market in Europe. This included a review of global trends in the co-location market, drilling down to specific supply-and-demand trends and the overall attractiveness of the hyperscale market in France and Poland. 

We assessed OpCore’s strategy regarding its current facilities, as well as a new data centre in the Paris region. We conducted a detailed assessment of OpCore’s business plan that included a thorough analysis of local (unconstrained) market demand, irrespective of the short-term supply constraints that are characteristics of the data-centre market. We evaluated the company’s main differentiators and ability to win business in an increasingly competitive market. This enabled us to gauge the company’s real capabilities to capitalise on such a fast-growing market.

The impact

This partnership will facilitate ambitious growth over the next decade 

The successful conclusion of this project resulted in InfraVia, a leading independent European private equity firm specialised in infrastructure and technology investments, taking a 50% stake in OpCore, which was valued at EUR860 million. Our work will also support the company’s debt facilities.

This strategic partnership will help accelerate the development of OpCore. Capacity is currently at around 30MW, which is set to quadruple with a new hyperscale facility in the Paris region that this transaction will bolster. 

OpCore has been in the data-centre business for over 20 years and has established a good reputation for being innovative, efficient and sustainable in its approach. This project will enable it to take its growth ambitions to the next level and expand within its existing European markets and beyond. The goal, according to OpCore’s CEO Arnaud de Bermingham, is to develop the company “into a major European hyperscale data-center platform.”

The longer-term plan partnership will allow OpCore to take advantage of the creation of a sovereign European digital ecosystem that will help to foster economic growth and technological innovation, especially at a time when AI use is intensifying.