[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Sangjin] According to investment banking (IB) industry sources on the 20th, IGIS Asset Management has selected Macquarie Asset Management as the preferred negotiator for the sale of the Kakao Data Center in Gyeonggi Province's Hanam. Macquarie Asset Management plans to acquire the data center through its listed infrastructure fund, Macquarie Infrastructure.

IGIS Asset Management had listed this property located at 607-2, 3 Pungsan-dong, Hanam-si, Gyeonggi Province for sale last year. Subsequently, they appointed JLL Korea as the sales advisor and began the formal sale process. IGIS Asset Management developed the data center directly through a fund, with construction handled by Samsung C&T and data center design and operation managed by LG CNS. Real estate trust management is handled by Woori Bank.

Kakao leases 92% of this data center, with LG CNS leasing the remaining 8%. It is interpreted that Kakao chose this location to secure disaster recovery capabilities following the Kakao outage incident in October 2022.

In the real estate IB industry, it is expected that the sale price of the Hanam Data Center could range from 800 billion to 1 trillion KRW.

As Macquarie Asset Management enters the domestic data center market for the first time, the industry anticipates increased activity in future data center transactions.

 

 

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