Bain Capital Merges ChinData with Bridge Data Centres to Establish Pan-Asian Data Centre Strategy

Bain Capital Credit’s special situations strategy became “Bain Capital Special Situations” in Fall 2022.

HONG KONG, July 25, 2019 – Bain Capital today announced the merger of ChinData, a leading Chinese operator of campus-style, hyperscale data centres, and Bridge Data Centres, a wholesale and custom build data centre company, to form one of the leading pan-Asian data centre platforms. The new parent Company, ChinData Group, will continue to operate under the ChinData and Bridge brands respectively. Bain Capital acquired ChinData in May 2019 from Wangsu Science & Technology Co. Ltd and has owned Bridge Data Centres since 2017.

The combined company delivers hyperscale, wholesale and custom-build data centre solutions to leading regional and global customers, with facilities in China, India, and Southeast Asia.  The company currently has delivered over 100 MW of contracted capacity and is still under continuous and full-speed development. 

Bain Capital’s investment in the combined entity is funded from vehicles managed by Bain Capital Private Equity and Bain Capital Credit. Executing this multi-part deal and corporate combination required long-term creative thinking and financing over more than three years, beginning with a greenfield development in India, acquisitions in Southeast Asia, and the exploration of the hyperscale opportunity brought about by the massive needs among Internet, cloud and technology companies in China. ChinData Group is poised to benefit from the dramatic growth in demand among enterprises for cloud services and the expansion of opportunities in Asia for international cloud providers that require high performance mission critical data centre facilities.

The combined company employs professionals with deep experience and capabilities in data centre design, development, and facility operations.  It expects to invest further capital to expand its footprint of wholesale and custom-build hyperscale solutions to more than 300 MW over the next two years to become one of the largest independent third-party data center platforms in Asia.

Jonathan Zhu, co-head of Asia Private Equity for Bain Capital, said: “This deal demonstrates Bain Capital’s capabilities as a truly cross-regional, multi-asset class investment platform.  The combined entity brings together the best minds to power the Asian data revolution, especially in China and India, the two largest and most promising markets globally. ChinData Group will be able to move quickly to serve customers on a pan-Asian regional basis and build a differentiated position in the market.”

Barnaby Lyons, a Managing Director and Head of Asia for Bain Capital Credit, said: “This transaction showcases that Bain Capital, with both private equity and special situations teams, can provide a wide spectrum of solutions to businesses in Asia looking for growth capital.”

About Bain Capital 

Bain Capital (www.baincapital.com) has partnered closely with management teams to provide the strategic resources that build great companies and help them thrive since its founding in 1984. Bain Capital Private Equity’s and Bain Capital Credit’s global teams of more than 475 investment professionals create value for its portfolio companies through its depth of expertise in key vertical industries and global distressed and special situations platforms. Bain Capital has offices in Boston, Chicago, New York, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Dublin, London, Munich, Madrid, Luxembourg, Melbourne, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Seoul, Guangzhou and Tokyo. Bain Capital invests across asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital and real estate, managing approximately USD 105 billion in total and leveraging the firm’s shared platform to capture opportunities in strategic areas of focus.

Bain Capital’s proven operational expertise and ability to leverage a fully integrated global team presents a significant advantage for companies looking to identify and execute opportunities to tap into Asia’s high growth markets. Bain Capital works with companies in Asia to achieve their full potential and drive value through operating improvements, growth strategies, M&A and carve-outs from larger corporate partners, such as the recent acquisition of Toshiba Memory Corporation from Toshiba.

About ChinData

ChinData specializes in delivering campus-style hyperscale data centres to Internet, cloud and technology companies in China. It owns and operates data centres in Shenzhen, Beijing, Zhangjiakou and Datong, with further expansion planned across multiple locations. The company has pioneered custom-build designs suited to hyperscale customer requirements.  Founded in Beijing and formerly owned by Wangsu Science and Technology Co, ChinData focuses on the planning, investment, construction, testing and operation of high-performance information infrastructure. 

ChinData is an industry-leading carrier neutral IT infrastructure solutions provider in China, focused on ecosystem planning, design, building, testing and operations. ChinData provides a full range of services for its customers, such as campus-style data centers, internet services and IT value-added business. Its customers include leading financial, internet, big data, AI enterprises as well as global hyper-scale cloud computing and technology companies.  

Since its establishment in August, 2015, ChinData has rapidly built a cluster of hyper-scale IT infrastructure bases around the capital, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Greater Bay Area, with Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen as core end markets, and more than 220 operators’ data rooms in China. In the above-mentioned regions, the company is involved in the development of the most basic level of infrastructure and resources. Its hyperscale data center ecosystem is an engine for development of renewal energy and the green economy.

ChinData’s world-class “edge computing data centers” and “hyperscale data centers” have respectively won the first Global HRA certificate for flexible internet solutions, the 2018 DCD Award for Global Edge Computing Data Center Innovation and the 2019 DataCloud Global Hyper-scale Innovation Award.

About Bridge Data Centres

Bridge is a wholesale and custom-build data centre solutions provider whose customers include large global enterprises and hyperscale cloud and technology companies with rapid expansion plans across the region. The company owns data center facilities in Malaysia and India while pursuing additional opportunities in Southeast Asia.  Established in 2017 to invest in greenfield projects in the India market, Bridge serves customers in multiple industry sectors, including financial institutions, technology companies, government and more recently large cloud services providers, with best-in-class operating and maintenance procedures to ensure the highest levels of uptime and reliability.