After cost-of-sales of $17.1m, the subsidiary had a gross profit of $117.3m from the year-ago $76m.
Big loss on property write-downs, forex, debt costs
But after taking three big hits, CDC NZ swung to an $87.7m net loss and reported a tax benefit of $37.6m versus its year-ago net profit of $637.6m – on which it paid $179.6m tax.
Its net financing costs tripled to $27m as total debt tripled to $1.03 billion, the bulk of it ($994.8m) in a related-party loan to CDC NZ FinCo1, formed in February this year and, in turn, owned by CDC’s Australian parent.
The company also took a fair value loss of $145.6m “on investment properties” from a year-ago gain of $588.5m.
And it made a loss of $45.9m on foreign exchange movement (the Kiwi dropped 8.5% in value against the Australian dollar over FY2026).
Third data centre added
CDC NZ lists the total value of its assets at $2.03b, almost all of which ($1.93b) is its “investment properties” – a term the company declined to define but which presumably includes data centres and their land.
The company reported capital expenditure on “investment properties” of $203.9m, from $389.5m in FY2025.
At the end of FY2026, there were outstanding contractual obligations of $102.1m “in relation to the purchase of land, construction or development of data centres”.
CDC also said in its results filing that after its FY2026 balance date it entered a 14-megawatt (MW), 25-year contract, expected to start in FY2027. It would not name the customer.
CDC’s Hobsonville 1 data centre, opened in 2022 then expanded. Photo / Chris Keall
The company opened its first two “hyperscale” data centres in New Zealand in 2022 – one on Westpoint Drive in Hobsonville in Auckland’s northwest, the other in Silverdale on Highgate Parkway.
Both were 14MW facilities when they opened (data centres are described by their peak power use) but have since had substantial upgrades.
CDC’s Silverdale 1 data centre, opened in 2022 and now expanded with Silverdale 2. Photo / Chris Keall
At the start of FY2026, CDC opened a third local data centre, called “Hobsonville 2″ in an Infratil investor presentation, at 92D Hobsonville Rd (a 35,000sq m property with a rateable value of $25.5m), just over 1km up the road from its first Hobsonville facility.
CDC declined questions on its total New Zealand capacity now, under construction and in the future, but a September 2025 Infratil investor presentation put CDC’s total Auckland capacity at 98MW, heading to 134MW once Hobsonville and Silverdale upgrades are complete.
Above: CDC NZ’s Hobsonville 2 data centre at 92D Hobsonville Rd, opened near the start of the company’s 2026 financial year.
For contrast, the CDC presentation has total capacity of 175MW in Canberra, 261MW in Melbourne and 291MW in Sydney, with 200MW of capacity under construction in Perth.
The firm also recently announced Australia’s largest-ever contract – for 55MW capacity with an unnamed US firm, and is in the running for a 500MW slice of a monster 1.4-gigawatt (1400MW) Anthropic contract.
That will necessitate a lot more data centre building, but an insider told the Herald it will all be in Australia, with the Anthropic contract not extending to New Zealand.
CDC NZ also owns a 28,000sq m property in East Tāmaki and a 5000sq m property in Māngere. It would not comment on whether it had data centre construction plans for those sections, or on what timeline.
100 staff?
CDC NZ’s total operating expenses – including staff costs of $11m, indicating 75 to 100 local staff – totalled $22.8m
CDC would not confirm staff numbers, but 100 would roughly fit its two “campuses”, as it calls its Hobsonville and Silverdale operations.
In an Overseas Investment Office application for a data centre at Whenuapai (which it never built as its time-limited approval expired), Microsoft said its hyperscale facility would employ 50.
Business with its cousin
Beyond loans, there were smaller but still intriguing related-party nuggets, including that CDC NZ received $633,000 in rental and services income from One NZ (which is 99.9% owned by Infratil, with departing chief executive Jason Paris and other executives owning the remaining sliver), up from the $227,000 it earned selling data centre services to the telco the previous year.
For its part, One NZ charged CDC NZ$255,000 (presumably for some industrial-strength broadband and other telecommunications services), up from $130,000.
Over the past three years, CDC Data Centres has risen to dominate Infratil’s capital expenditure, and become easily its most valuable asset. However, One NZ has been easily the largest contributor to operating earnings (ebitdaf).
The Australia-New Zealand-wide picture
The independent valuation of Infratil’s half-share in CDC has been hiked quarter after quarter – including a 23.6% increase in the June quarter just closed to A$9.2b.
Much of that is tied to forecast future growth.
Publicly listed Infratil’s investor updates have offered a window into the privately held CDC’s overall Australasian financials.
According to Infratil’s 2026 annual report, CDC‘s revenue across Australia and New Zealand increased from A$446m in FY25 to A$534m.
Operational earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation, and fair value adjustments (ebitdaf) increased from A$330m to A$393m. (No net profit/loss figure was provided.)
Capital expenditure increased from A$1.76b to A$2.11b.
Net debt increased from A$3.50b to A$4.88b.
A March 2026 Infratil update said CDC’s FY2027 ebitdaf guidance was A$680 to A$720m, with the company on track to top A$1b in FY2028.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
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