Under the terms of the deal, first announced amid a strategic alliance in June 2018 which included the transfer of the operations and assets, AT&T has received $1.1 billion.
The funds will support the company's goal of reducing its net-debt-to-EBITDA-ratio to the 2.5x range by the end of 2019.
Under Brookfield’s ownership, the business will continue to deliver colocation services to customers in 18 internet data centres (IDCs) in the US and 13 outside the US. The colocation data centre operations serve a diversified customer base of more than 1,000 companies across the technology, financial, industrial, media retail and other sectors worldwide.
Brookfield has established a wholly-owned company, Evoque Data Center Solutions, to own and operate the assets. AT&T will become an active sales channel for the business and will be the anchor tenant of the colocation operations.
Evoque has joined AT&T's global colocation ecosystem programme where AT&T will offer Evoque's colocation services to business customers. The ecosystem programme offers business customers access to over 350 data centres, including transferred IDCs, around the world.
Tim Caulfield, presently CEO of ANTARA Group, has been appointed as CEO of Evoque. Caulfield’s leadership team includes veterans of AT&T and other leading communications and technology companies.
Customer contracts, employees supporting the colocation operations, fixed assets, leases and specified owned facilities have now been transferred to Brookfield.
Brookfield brings a long track record of owning and managing essential infrastructure assets and global scale and expertise to enhance and grow the business. Brookfield is one of the world’s largest investors, owners and operators of infrastructure assets globally, with more than $75 billion in assets under management across the communications infrastructure, utilities, transport, energy, renewable power, and sustainable resources sectors.