King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised Brookfield Infrastructure on its purchase of AT&T’s global data centre colocation operations in conjunction with King & Spalding LLP. The transaction, valued at $1.1 billion, includes 31 data centres across 5 continents.
The centres will be operated by a newly created and wholly owned subsidiary of Brookfield, Evoque Data Center Solutions, which will now provide colocation services to more than 1,000 business customers, in partnership with AT&T’s wider enterprise offering.
The telco’s existing customer contracts, employees responsible for colocation operations, fixed assets, leases and certain owned facilities were included in the sale.
A truly global collaboration, the KWM team advising Brookfield was led by Partner, Adrian Perkins and included lawyers from the firm’s Sydney, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore offices.
Commenting on the deal, Adrian Perkins said: “We are delighted to have leveraged our global platform and deep local expertise to assist Brookfield to complete this international transaction, which will see them enter into a strategic partnership with AT&T and become a part of its global colocation ecosystem. The data centres will be added to Brookfield’s existing portfolio of more than $75 billion in global infrastructure assets.”
In joining AT&T’s global colocation ecosystem program, Brookfield will now contribute to the 350+ data centres available to business customers around the world.
The global KWM team included:
Sydney
APAC Lead team: Adrian Perkins, Partner and Marie Vlassis, Solicitor
Corporate, Commercial and M&A: Adrian Perkins, Partner, Alexander Galanos, Senior Associate, Marie Vlassis, Solicitor and Sam Monk, Solicitor
FIRB: Malcolm Brennan, Partner
Intellectual Property: Patrick Gunning, Partner and Nick Valentine, Senior Associate
Environmental: Michael Causer, Partner and Christina Crossman, Solicitor
Real Estate: Felicity Savage, Partner, Michelle Tat, Solicitor and Sean Park, Solicitor
Employment: Andrew Gray, Partner and Annabelle Paxton-Hall, Solicitor
Tax: Leah Ranie, Partner, Joanne Langford, Special Counsel and Victoria Lanyon, Senior Associate
Hong Kong
Corporate and M&A: Hayden Flinn, Partner, Luke McCarthy, Senior Associate, Stephanie Courtice, Lawyer, Cathy Yu, Company Secretarial and April Chow, Company Secretarial Supervisor
Intellectual Property and Employment: Peter Bullock, Partner
Environmental and Real Estate: SiuNigor Chow, Partner, Ivy Man, Counsel, and Libby Young, Associate
Shanghai
Corporate and M&A: Mark Schaub, Partner, Atticus Zhao, Senior Associate, Wang Jianyu, Associate and Guo Jiyu, Associate
Intellectual Property: Cecilia Lou, Partner and Sun Haoguang, Senior Associate
Data Privacy: Atticus Zhao, Senior Associate and Wang Jianyu, Associate
Environmental: Mark Schaub, Partner
Real Estate: William Jiang, Partner and Owen Ren, Senior Associate
Employment: Lucy Lu, Partner and Ding Wu, Associate
Tax: Ci Zhang, Partner
Singapore (in conjunction with Allen & Gledhill LLP):
Corporate and M&A: John Sullivan, Partner and Elizabeth Blanch, Associate
Commercial: Michael Lawson, Partner, Tian Xu, Senior Associate and Elizabeth Blanch, Associate
Employment: Michael Lawson, Partner and Elizabeth Blanch, Associate
