Data centre group NextDC wants shareholders to cough up $618 million to help pay for two new developments as part of its regional expansion strategy into Asia and NZ.
The data centres will be built on recently acquired commercial property sites in Kuala Lumpur and Auckland to meet growing demand from cloud service companies for new facilities.
The $618 million entitlement offer comprises a 1 for 8 pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer to raise ~A$618 million at a price of $10.80 per a share, compared to the last sale on Wednesday of $11.78.
NextDC shares were halted yesterday to allow the funding raising to start.
The centres to be developed at the KL1 which NextDC says is located 10 kilometres from the Kuala Lumpur CBD, with total power planned of 65 megawatts while the other is in Auckland’s CBD with a total power demand of 10 megawatts.
The company said in Thursday’s announcement that both centres are expected to reach the completion of their phase one development in the first half of 2025-26.
As well there will be money in the raising for the accelerated fit out of the Sydney 3 centre.
NextDC said around a quarter of a billion dollars would be involved in the KL1 fit out, $A140 million in the Auckland development and around $150 million could be spent stepping on the gas to complete the fitting out at S3 in the northern suburb of Artarmon.
Following completion of the Entitlement Offer, the company said it will have pro-forma tangible asset backing of around $A3.8 billion and pro-forma liquidity of about $A2.6 billion.
At the same time NextDC revealed an upgrade to its 2023 figures provided at the interim results in February.
Data centre services revenue in the range of $A350 million to $A360 million (previously guidance was at the upper end of the $A340 million to $A355 million range).
Underlying EBITDA is now forecast to be in the range of $A192 million to $A196 million (previous range: $A190 million to $A198 million).
Capex is up $53 million to reflect the purchase of the land for KL 1 in Malaysia. The new capex range is $A670 million to $A720 million (previous range: A$620 million to A$670 million)
