DLA Piper advises on EUR340 million investment into innovation campus

A cross-border and multijurisdictional team from global law firm DLA Piper has advised Astra Partners, a specialist investor and developer in the datacentre market, on receiving a EUR340 million financing facility to fund the development of a datacentre in Kildare, Ireland.

The funds, provided by the global alternative investment manager, Ares Management, will enable Astra to further develop the Kildare Innovation Campus. The first phase of the project will kick-start a development that aims to offer significant capacity for cloud providers, enterprises, and data‑intensive workloads, addressing Europe’s growing need for secure, resilient digital infrastructure.

Ares Management is a global alternative investment manager, focused on credit, real estate, private equity, and infrastructure asset classes. The firm has over USD595 billion AUM and has over 60 offices worldwide.  

The multidisciplinary cross-border team from DLA Piper’s offices in the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg and Singapore was led by Toby Barker, partner in the firm’s Finance practice. He was supported by partners Xavier Guzman and Jared Green (both Finance), Michael Graham (Tax), Melody Brunot and Lars Jessen (both Corporate), of Counsel Wei Hong Wong (Finance), counsel Audrey Mucciante (Finance), legal director Gemma Rooney (Finance), senior associates Wing Tang and Fanny Denoel-Otieno (both Finance), and Paul Eglington (Tax), associates Clarice Chung and Saleh El Rizz (both Finance), trainee solicitor Joanna Kass (Finance) and solicitor apprentice Mikhal Gupta (Finance).

Commenting on the transaction, Toby Barker said: “This financing will allow Astra to continue its development of a leading datacentre campus for the benefit of its clients and businesses operating in Ireland and across Europe. The investment from Ares Management is a sign of investor appetite for digital infrastructure.

The successful provision of this financing is another example of how our cross-border teams are able to provide seamless advice on complex financing structures in the rapidly expanding area of datacentre investment and development.”

Lars Jessen added: “This is a landmark step in Astra Partners’ growth and development and it is fantastic that DLA Piper have supported Astra Partners throughout their journey so far.”

DLA Piper has advised several clients on their datacentre-related transactions, including:

• Supporting the Qatar Investment Authority on its investment in d-matric, a leader in GenAI for datacentres.
• Advising Helios Investment Partners on the acquisition of Maroc Datacentre, Munisys, and Medasys, creating 3MDC, a new digital infrastructure platform.
• Guiding Prime Capital AG on the acquisition of WBS Flugplatz GmbH and the establishment of a joint venture to develop a hyperscale data center.
• Advising Echelon on the creation of a joint venture with Iberdrola for the development of data centres in Spain.
• Supporting Digital Gravity Partners on the acquisition of an enterprise datacentre in England.
• Leading the legal counsel on the sale of hyperscale datacentre solution provider, AirTrunk, to Blackstone for AUD24 billion.