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Benefits of the Digital Colony Portfolio and Partnership

Benefits of the Digital Colony Portfolio and Partnership


Digital business transformation initiatives first launched across many industries just over 10 years ago, so many businesses today are marking over a decade of transformation. It’s encouraging that, on balance, companies continue to build momentum on their digital journeys. According to Ernst & Young research, today almost half (44 percent) of corporations said they are making good progress with their transformation plans – accelerating across a steep transformation maturity curve.

As enterprises digitize their operations, their underlying IT infrastructure needs to transform as well: becoming more agile, scalable, transparent, and software-driven. DataBank provides a variety of IT infrastructure services that help customers on the digital transformation journey. By combining edge data centers, interconnection hubs, managed security, and cloud platforms we give IT decision-makers the ability to meet the challenges of this journey and create a limitless digital future.

In addition, DataBank is an important cornerstone in an even larger ecosystem – the Digital Colony portfolio. As one of the largest digital infrastructure REITs in the world, Digital Colony maintains broad visibility across the entire digital landscape and provides a range of benefits for DataBank and our customers.

An Unmatched Combination of Digital and Real Estate Expertise

Digital Colony is a leading global investment firm dedicated to digital infrastructure. With a heritage of over 25 years investing in and operating businesses across the digital ecosystem including towers, data centers, fiber, and small cells, the firm manages a $30 billion portfolio of digital infrastructure assets on behalf of its shareholders and partners. It is a dedicated team of nearly 100 professionals focused exclusively on digital infrastructure and the opportunities for growth across the sector.

The founding principle behind Digital Colony that continues to inform its investing philosophy is its operator-led approach, partnering with best-in-class management teams to build and support their continued growth. The Digital Colony playbook is rooted in decades of experience operating companies that own and manage real assets with mission-critical applications.

Digital Colony focuses on generating attractive risk-adjusted returns and creating long-term value for shareholders and investors through its significant global scale and operating platform, strategic M&A capabilities, and access to institutional capital markets.

Digital Colony’s reach is global and its teams are local, which is mirrored in DataBank’s approach. In both companies, seasoned veterans provide access to compelling real estate and data center insights, understanding risk and navigating changing market climates.

A Vibrant Ecosystem with an End-to-End Perspective

Digital Colony’s portfolio holdings, companies that fuel connectivity and innovation, are centered around four primary segments of the digital infrastructure landscape:

• Tower Assets that provide comprehensive network coverage and capacity
• Fiber Assets that form the connective tissue binding networks together
• Small Cell Assets that enable network densification in high-demand areas
• Data Center Assets that provide the secure facilities for the growing compute and storage demands of applications and data

Benefits of the Digital Colony Portfolio and Partnership - DataBank

As part of this dynamic ecosystem, DataBank has visibility into the trends and developments that are shaping the future of the edge and IT infrastructure, and we’re able to tap into the expertise and capabilities of fellow portfolio companies like Zayo, Extenet, Vantage and Vertical Bridge to address the needs of customers in ways other data center providers cannot.

Financial Stability and the Power to Scale

Providing IT infrastructure at the scale that DataBank does requires a tremendous amount of capital, and being part of the Digital Colony portfolio ensures we can attract the resources necessary to finance the long-term growth and stability on which our customers depend. Digital Colony’s backing has been instrumental in two recent watershed events in the history of DataBank and the data center industry.

The first was our $1.4 billion acquisition of zColo, the data center assets of Zayo Group Holdings, which dramatically expanded DataBank’s footprint to 65 data centers and 20 major interconnect hubs in 29 metro markets. This positions us as a leading-edge colocation and interconnect platform.

The second was our recent issuance of $658 million of secured notes, DataBank’s first securitization and the first ever for a multi-tenant, enterprise-focused data center provider.
The new securitization reduces our financing costs by more than 50 percent, allowing us to invest more in data center capacity and the services our customers want, while providing a powerful launchpad upon which we can initiate future transactions.

A Greener Digital Transformation Journey

Being part of the Digital Colony ecosystem also helps DataBank and our customers ensure that their digital transformation journey is a greener and more responsible one as well.

Digital Colony recognizes the tremendous social and environmental impact and potential of the IT infrastructure industry and has established itself as a leader in Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) principles . The company has actively integrated ESG into its investment process, and set goals and targets to be implemented by employees, affiliates, vendors and suppliers. Most recently, Digital Colony has committed to a bold Net Zero 2030 initiative, targeting zero greenhouse gas emissions across its entire digital ecosystem well ahead of its peers. These goals are aligned with The Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi), a leading partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Initiative (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and they are focused on reducing, re-sourcing, and removing emissions across the value chain. In doing so, Digital Colony has set the pace for its portfolio companies, and DataBank and others have followed suit.

From a liquid-cooled supercomputer customer in Georgia to greener backup systems, DataBank has developed a keen awareness of the impact that data centers and the entire digital ecosystem are having on the environment. We have continuously adapted facilities and operations to enhance environmental responsibility. Most recently, DataBank announced two of its Indianapolis and Minneapolis data centers were the first to be 100 percent powered by renewable sources, helping customers in those facilities meet their own ESG goals.

Looking toward the next digital decade, technologies like 5G and IoT will create a data deluge that compels enterprises further transform their IT infrastructures. DataBank and its customers can look ahead to those future transformations, confident in the knowledge that they are benefiting from the broad digital perspective, innovative thinking, robust capital, and sustainable approach that comes from being part of the Digital Colony ecosystem.

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