Clifford Chance, Milbank, And Rahmat Lim Advised On Malaysia Data Centre Financing
Clifford Chance, Milbank, And Rahmat Lim Advised On Malaysia Data Centre Financing
Clifford Chance, Milbank, and Rahmat Lim & Partners have advised on the successful securing of over $900 million in project financing for Yondr Group’s hyperscale data centre in Johor, Malaysia. The financing, which is led by a consortium of seven financial institutions, including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), will fund the construction and initial operation of a 98-megawatt (MW) facility.
The project is part of a larger data centre campus planned in Johor’s Sedenak Tech Park, which, once completed, will have a total capacity of 340MW, positioning it to become the largest hyperscale data centre campus in Southeast Asia. In addition to IFC, the consortium includes DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, ING, Natixis CIB, and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners.
This financing marks Yondr’s first major debt deal in the region, made possible by a special exemption from the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), which allowed the company to bypass the usual approval process for foreign currency borrowings from Bank Negara Malaysia.
Thomas England, partner at Clifford Chance, commented, "We are thrilled to advise Yondr on securing the complex financing for the first phase of its landmark hyperscale data centre project, which will be a benchmark for other similar financings in the region. This transaction also marks the start of an exciting wave of data centre development in Malaysia, driven by the accelerating demands of technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing and blockchain".
The growing investor interest in the Asia-Pacific data centre market, spurred by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence-based services, further highlights the significance of this deal. Yondr Group has committed over 420MW of capacity to hyperscalers, with plans to expand to more than 1GW.
The Clifford Chance team advising Yondr was led by Partner Thomas England, supported by Counsel Chin Seng Chew and Jervis Chan, and Associate Ivan Ting.
Partner Matthew Buchanan, Senior Associate James Thornton, and Associate Thomas Hobbs Martin advised on the construction aspects.
Partner Francis Edwards and Senior Associate Leland Hui advised on the derivatives aspects.
Milbank’s team, advising the finance parties, was led by Partners James Orme, David Zemans, and Dan Bartfeld, with Special Counsel Rosaline Yusman, Of Counsel Desiree Woo, and Associates Deirdre Swift, Wei Sheng Lee, An Guo, Kris Singh, Denisa Neagoe, and Jade du Berry.
Rahmat Lim & Partners acted as Malaysian local counsel to Yondr on the deal.
Once completed, the Johor campus will play a critical role in meeting the increasing data centre capacity demands of the world’s largest technology companies.
