Europe now has a new sovereign “made in Europe” competitor to the US hyperscalers
The Iliad Group and InfraVia have closed the transaction aimed at developing OpCore into a major European hyperscale data center platform, first announced on 4 December. As a result of the deal, Iliad is selling a 50% stake in OpCore, its data center subsidiary to InfraVia. The strategic partnership is aimed at developing OpCore into a major independent European hyperscale data center platform. OpCore is valued at an enterprise value of €860 million.
OpCore has a 20-year history of operating data centres to meet the needs of the Iliad Group, hyperscalers, techcos and large corporations. It has data centres in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Poland. Through this partnership, Iliad and InfraVia have provided OpCore with the financial structure it needs to capitalise on the booming European hyperscale data market, by developing new 100 MW+ data centres in France and Europe with several construction projects already underway.
“Together with our partner, InfraVia, we’re looking forward to supporting OpCore’s teams in this ambitious new chapter of the company’s development,” said Iliad CEO Thomas Reynaud (above). “Europe needs independent data centre platforms more than ever before as these infrastructures, dedicated to storing and processing vast amounts of data, are essential enablers for a thriving ‘made in Europe’ AI ecosystem.”
“We’re determined to invest massively alongside the Iliad Group to turn OpCore into a European leader in hyperscale data centres,” InfraVia chief executive officer Vincent Levita. “Achieving this goal means investing at an unprecedented scale to meet the exponential market demand and help shape a robust and sovereign European digital ecosystem.”
The proposed partnership is intended to give OpCore the “right financial structure” with dedicated financing that will cover up to 75% of the required investment in OpCore with bank debt. It would enable OpCore to scale to more than 130 MW by developing a data centre in the Paris region of about 100MW, and then to multiple hundreds of megawatts in Europe.
The plan is that OpCore and the Iliad Group remain close partners, working together rapidly to expand Scaleway, Iliad Group’s cloud subsidiary, and OpCore itself. Scaleway will retain its status as a privileged client of OpCore.
Pardieu Brocas Maffei has advised InfraVia on the negotiation and drafting of the Master Services Agreement as well as on the real estate aspects of the transaction. InfraVia was also assisted by the investment banking firm Perella Weinberg Partners with Gilles Tré-Hardy. The EU nodded through the deal on 21 February.
