Macquarie Technology Group seeks $130m for new data centre build

Macquarie Technology Group’s Sydney North data centre campus will soon sprout a new facility if the company is successful with a $130 million capital raising.

The company asked to enter a trading halt on Tuesday so it could issue the prospectus for the raising.

The company currently has five data centres: one in the Sydney CBD, two in its Macquarie Park campus, and two in the ACT.

It claims to have “two out of three” of the world’s largest public cloud providers as customers, and holds certified strategic status with the federal government.

The company doesn’t identify where any new construction would be, saying only that its current development is concentrated in “Sydney’s desirable north zone”.

The prospectus identifies digitisation and AI as drivers for data centre growth, and it plans to have the capital raising of around 2.2 million fully-paid shares settled by June 20.

Last week, Macquarie Group announced the early completion of two secure zones and other upgrades in Sydney and Canberra.

Data centres are going through something of a boom in Australia.

In December 2022, CDC announced a billion-dollar expansion of its Eastern Creek campus, followed by a land acquisition in Bringelly in May 2023 for another facility.

In May, NEXTDC launched a $618 million placement to fund two new data centres and accelerate the fitout of its S3 site in Sydney.