Berkshire Partners to buy majority stake in Teraco

Teraco Data Environments is being acquired by Berkshire Partners, a Boston-based investment firm. The Permira funds, an existing shareholder, will remain a “significant” investor alongside Berkshire.

Berkshire Partners will now hold the majority stake in Teraco, the South African data centre operator said in a statement. The deal has not closed yet, and is also subject to the approval of the Competition Commission.

An earlier report suggested that Berkshire Partners met Permira’s asking price of $1-billion (about R14-billion), but TechCentral understands this figure is incorrect.

Teraco CEO Lex van Wyk said in a telephone interview with TechCentral on Thursday afternoon that Berkshire Partners will come in as a strategic investor alongside Permira. He declined to say what stakes the two investors will have in Teraco after the deal is concluded. Management also owns shares in the business.

Van Wyk hinted that further investors may come on board soon, but declined to elaborate.

Based in Johannesburg and established in 2008, Teraco is the largest provider of data centre services in Africa. It has invested almost R3-billion in its facilities to date.

Six times

The Permira funds initially backed a Teraco management buyout in December 2014 and in that time the business has multiplied its capacity more than six times. The company operates five facilities with 30MW of critical power load serving about 450 clients, including global Internet companies.

In a statement, Teraco MD Jan Hnizdo described Berkshire Partners as a “like-minded and committed long-term partner that shares our vision for the future”.

Hnizdo said that over the next few years, Teraco aims to double its installed critical power load from 30MW to 60MW.

The Berkshire Partners transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.  — (c) 2019 NewsCentral Media