DigiCo REIT in tepid debut after marking Australia's biggest IPO in six years

By Sameer Manekar

(Reuters) -Shares in DigiCo Infrastructure REIT, a data centre landlord and operator, hovered around their IPO price on Friday - a subdued debut after marking Australia's biggest listing in six years.

DigiCo, whose IPO raised A$2 billion ($1.3 billion), was trading at A$4.935 in the afternoon, a bit below the A$5.00 offer price. It rose to A$5.10 earlier in the day.

The listing of the HMC Capital firm underscores growing investor appetite for data centres in the Asia-Pacific region driven by the demand for artificial intelligence-based services.

That said, its lacklustre debut also signals some concern about the rich valuations that recent data centre deals have commanded.

Morningstar last month gave DigiCo a 'high uncertainty rating with a fair value estimate of A$3.40 per share. Its offer price assumes high rates of return, said analyst Roy van Keulen, adding that this was unlikely or unlikely to persist given the competitive nature of the industry.

DigiCo manages an A$4 billion portfolio of data centres across the U.S. and Australia. It has said it will use part of the IPO proceeds to buy two large-scale adjoining data centre sites near Sydney with a contracted capacity of 20 megawatts.

Asset manager HMC Capital, founded by banker-turned-investor David Di Pilla, retains an 18.2% stake in DigiCo.

The sector has seen much activity in Australia this year. A Blackstone-led consortium bought data centre firm AirTrunk in a deal with an implied enterprise value of A$24 billion, while NextDC launched a capital raising via equity of A$750 million and has sought to raise A$2.9 billion via debt. Pension giant AustralianSuper has also made billion-dollar investments in the sector.

Howard Penny, co-head of real estate research at Citi, was optimistic about the sector's prospects, saying there was an "attractive structural growth opportunity for investment into data centres in Australia and globally driven by the rise of artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and higher demand for information storage".

($1 = 1.5733 Australian dollars)

Source: Investing.com