Australian property and logistics company Goodman Group said on Wednesday it was raising A$4 billion ($2.54 billion) in a share placement to fund its data centre business growth plans.
The Sydney-headquartered firm will issue 119.42 million shares at A$33.5 each, it said in a regulatory filing.
The price is a 6.9% discount to Goodman’s closing price on Tuesday of A$35.98. The deal also includes a A$400 million security purchase plan for existing investors, the filings showed.
Goodman’s shares are trading about 1% higher year to date and the company said the money raised would help fund its data centre and logistics operations future expansion plans. Goodman said some of the money would also be used to reduce its debt levels.
“Escalating demand for data centres has created a step change for the growth of our business, this has been fuelled by increased cloud use, migration of data to cloud, AI and machine learning,” Goodman Chief Executive Greg Goodman told an investor call.
The company on Wednesday reported an A$1.22 billion first half operating profit, up 8% on the same time last year.
Goodman currently has 5 gigawatts of data centres in 13 cities and intends to start development of a further 0.5 gigawatts by June next year.
The new assets will be located in Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam and Hong Kong and be worth A$10 billion, Goodman said.
($1 = 1.5743 Australian dollars)
Reuters
