• General
  • May 27, 2020
  • 4 minutes read

KKR Sets Up $2.5 Billion Data Center Venture

KKR co-founder and Co-CEO Henry Kravis. Photograph by Stefen Chow/Fortune, under Creative Commons license Famed private equity firm KKR has…

KKR co-founder and Co-CEO Henry Kravis.

Photograph by Stefen Chow/Fortune, under Creative Commons license

Famed private equity firm KKR has announced it’s embarking on a new data center venture via the formation of a new company, Global Technical Realty (GTR), a company will set up and offer data center services in Europe. KKR is committing $1 billion in equity for the venture, plus additional commitments over time that’ll eventually add up to about $2.5 billion, according to a press statement.

The new company, GTR, will be led by Franek Sodzawiczny, a veteran data center entrepreneur who previously founded and led Zenium, a data center operator that was acquired in 2018 for about $442 million. Zenium was acquired by CyrusOne, a data center-focused real estate investment trust. Before founding Zenium, Sodzawiczny also co-founded Sentrum, a large U.K.-based data center operator.

GTR has initiated a partnership with Mercury Engineering, a European engineering contractor with deep experience in data center construction, to help design and develop data center products that’ll cater to the needs of cloud service providers. “We are thrilled to have found an investor like KKR that shares our vision for the future of the data center market. KKR’s breadth of resources and tremendous expertise will allow GTR to fully participate in this growing market and provide a solid foundation for GTR’s future growth and success.” GTR’s CEO, Franek Sodzawiczny, said in a press statement.

To help build GTR, Sodzawiczny, with the help of KKR, has recruited other professionals with deep roots in the data center and real estate industries.




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