The transaction, which will close in approximately two months, is expected to generate capital gains before taxes and controlling interests of around €260 million.
It includes the signing of a housing services agreement whereby Telefónica will continue to provide and manage the services it has been offering its customers from these centers and will maintain the direct relationship with them.
Asterion will use the sales network of the Telefónica Group's operations to market the remaining capacity of the data centres, which have an installed service capacity of 29MW.
Telefónica said: “The agreement announced today is part of the Telefónica Group’s asset portfolio management policy based on a strategy of value creation, improving return on capital and strategic positioning.
“It also complements the objective of organic debt reduction and strengthening the balance sheet in a growing cash flow scenario, which allows the company to maintain a sustainable and attractive shareholder remuneration.”
Argentina, Brazil, Spain and Peru each have two of the data centres, with the remaining three in Chile, Mexico and the US.
Asterion is a Madrid-based investor, mainly focusing on the European market. Jesus Olmos, CEO and founding partner, said: “It is a unique opportunity to access a high-quality top-tier data centre platform which fits well with our target investment profile of the European infrastructure mid-market. We see several ways to further create value post the carve-out and intend to apply our industrial approach to continue to position the business within a strongly growing market for data centre capacity.”
Telefónica will keep its commercial positioning, the relationship with its customers and its leadership in offering connectivity services and cloud capabilities for the corporate segment.
Its portfolio will continue to offer services from a network of 23 data centres, including the 11 that it sold.
The sale does not include servers owned by Telefónica, or the management and access to customers hosted on them.
