SINGAPORE – ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), a company backed by Singapore’s investment company Temasek, is exploring a potential initial public offering (IPO) that could raise more than US$1 billion (S$1.32 billion), according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
The Singapore-based data centre operator has held discussions with potential advisers on an offering that could value it at more than US$5 billion, the sources said.
STT GDC is considering Singapore and the United States among possible listing venues, said the sources. A share sale could take place as soon as at the end of 2023 if it decides to proceed, they added.
Deliberations are at an early stage and details of the IPO could still change, according to the sources. The company could also opt to stay private for longer, they said.
A representative for Temasek declined to comment.
“As with many businesses of our size and scale, we are constantly exploring all options to optimise our capital structure, from attracting strategic and financial investors, bond offerings and to an IPO,” a representative for STT GDC said in response to a Bloomberg News query. “We will continue to concentrate on scaling our business and introducing new industry-leading sustainability technologies, and will update in due course on our future capital plans.”
Should STT GDC proceed with a listing in Singapore, the offering would give a boost to the nation’s IPO market, which hosted only US$354 million worth of first-time share sales in 2022, down from US$1.06 billion in 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The last time a company raised over US$1 billion through an IPO there was in 2017, when Netlink NBN Trust raised US$1.7 billion.
Alternatively, an STT GDC IPO in the US raising over US$1 billion would be the biggest first-time share sale there by a Singapore-headquartered company, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.
Internet giant Sea holds the record with its US$989 million US IPO in 2017.
STT GDC is one of Asia’s largest data centre operators, managing over 170 facilities in Singapore, India, China, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. Temasek fully owns Singapore Technologies Telemedia, the parent of STT GDC.
Macquarie Asset Management this week closed a deal to buy a 40 per cent stake in STT GDC’s European unit Virtus Data Centres for an undisclosed sum. The Straits Times reported on Tuesday that the deal could value Virtus at between £2.5 billion (S$4 billion) and £13 billion. BLOOMBERG
