Dallas data center firm lands $1.45 billion in new financing

Dallas-based DataBank, one of the nation’s largest data center companies, closed $1.45 billion in new financing, the firm announced Monday.

The funding came from two financial transactions —  an $800 million revolving credit facility and $650 million in additional construction financing for the company’s data center campus in Red Oak, just south of Dallas.

The $800 million revolving credit facility can be used for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures and support for the company’s growth and acquisition strategy. The flexible borrowing agreement was arranged by a syndicate of banks led by Citizens Bank, N.A. along with joint lead arrangers Citibank, MUFG Bank, Ltd., PNC Bank, N.A., TD Securities (USA) LLC, Truist Securities, Inc., U.S. Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo Securities.

DataBank also landed an additional $650 million to fund construction at its roughly 300-acre Red Oak campus on Stainback Road. It adds to the $2 billion the firm received in April, bringing the total loan amount to $2.65 billion. The new $650 million will support the construction of the fourth building on the campus. The building will add 60 megawatts of IT capacity.

Roughly $400 million of the new construction financing comes from the same banking partners from April’s announcement. The remaining $250 million was part of Databank’s first private placement transaction. This opens the company to new institutional investors and adds additional sources of funding for development projects, the firm said.

At full build out, the Red Oak campus will include eight two-story data centers. Each will offer 200,000 square feet of data center space.

“As demand for data center capacity continues to accelerate, having a robust and flexible capital structure is essential. This revolver, combined with the upsized Red Oak financing and our inaugural private placement, positions DataBank to move decisively as we expand our platform and deepen our relationships with hyperscale, cloud and enterprise customers,” Kevin Ooley, president and CFO of DataBank, said in a statement.

MUFG served as lead placement agent, with TD Securities (USA) LLC and Barclays as joint placement agents, and Citibank, Citizens Bank, N.A., and National Bank of Canada as co-placement agents.

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP served as legal counsel to DataBank on both transactions.

A data center campus with peak demand of 1 gigawatt is roughly equivalent to the average annual consumption of about 700,000 homes, or a city of around 1.8 million people, according to a CNBC analysis using data from the Department of Energy and Census Bureau.