Aware Super rides AI wave with European fibre platform investment

Aware Super has broadened its digital infrastructure portfolio with a minority stake in London-headquartered bandwidth and data centre connectivity company euNetworks.

The deal is part of a €2.1 billion ($2.35 billion) equity recapitalisation via a vehicle led by global infrastructure and real assets manager Stonepeak, anchored by Mercer and Aware Super, along with direct investments from Investment Management Corporation of Ontario and APG Asset Management.

euNetworks builds and invests in city and long-haul fibre networks to connect key European data centres and data hubs.

It owns and operates deep fibre networks in 18 cities, and directly connects more than 542 data centres.

Aware Super Head of Infrastructure Mark Hector said euNetworks was an attractive asset due to its unique duct and fibre footprint and the highest number of ‘on-net’ data centres relative to European peers.

“The addition of euNetworks also further diversifies our digital infrastructure holdings as it sits in the nexus between our investment into Switch DC (USA) – which is a pure-play data centre – and Vocus (Australia) / 2 Degrees (NZ) – which is a pure fibre play," he said in a media release.

He noted the deal should empower euNetworks to capture the strong tailwinds arising aout fo the acceleration in AI innovation and adoption. 

"This is also a strong opportunity for us to further diversify our global digital infrastructure holdings into Europe," Hector said.

Katya Romashkan, Aware Super portfolio manager for infrastructure, will also have a seat on the board of euNetworks.