ST Telemedia and Tata Communication have entered into definitive agreements whereby ST Telemedia, through ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), will upon closing of the transaction acquire a 74% majority stake in Tata Communications' data centre business in India and Singapore. Tata Communications will remain as a significant shareholder, holding the remaining 26% stake in the businesses.
The joint venture will include Tata Communications' fourteen data centres in key cities across India and its three Singapore facilities. The data centres currently service a highly-diversified customer base, including blue chip enterprises in Asia, e-commerce platforms and global multi-national corporations. Both parties will work in partnership to ensure service continuity for customers and employee engagement.
With this acquisition, STT GDC will further expand and strengthen its global data centre network to span four geographies, including strong bases in two of Asia's largest growth markets - India and China. While Tata Communications will retain a stake in the colocation market in these important markets, its focus will be on the development and introduction of its advanced managed services portfolio (including IP, cloud enablement and unified communications services), and continuing to invest in its strategic partnerships globally.
Vinod Kumar, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Communications, said: "Today marks a milestone moment in Tata Communications' evolution. We have been proud of the tremendous growth of our data centre subsidiary over a relatively short time. This new joint venture partnership will now allow us to hone our strategic focus on advanced services within the data centre that enable digital transformation for our customers, in addition to infrastructure services. Our new partnership also gives us the opportunity to redeploy capital behind other areas of our business, to further broaden the portfolio of services we can offer to meet our customers' current and future requirements."
Sio Tat Hiang, Executive Director, ST Telemedia, added: "This partnership marks another key milestone in STT GDC's growth. Since ST Telemedia's initial investment in the data centre business in mid-2014, we have made remarkable progress in building a formidable data centre footprint internationally with strategic presence in key economic hubs to capture industry demand. The latest addition of India to the STT GDC network will be a major impetus to advance the company's ambition to be a significant global data centre service provider. We are pleased to partner with an established company like Tata Communications, to pursue opportunities in the growing data centre market."
