ST Telemedia to acquire majority stake in Tata Communication's India, Singapore Data-Center business

NEW DELHI: Singapore-based ST Telemedia has agreed to buy a 74% majority stake in Tata Communications’ data centre business in India and Singapore.

Under the agreement, Tata Communications will remain as a significant shareholder, holding the remaining 26% stake in the businesses.

"Singapore Technologies Telemedia (ST Telemedia), a strategic global investor focused on the communications, media and technology sectors, and Tata Communications, a leading global communications provider, today announce that they have entered into definitive agreements whereby ST Telemedia, through ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), will acquire a 74% majority stake in Tata Communications’ data centre business in India and Singapore. Tata Communications will remain as a significant shareholder, holding the remaining 26% stake in the businesses," Tata Communications said in statement.

The joint venture will include Tata Communications’ fourteen data centres in key cities across India and its three Singapore facilities. The data centres currently service a highly-diversified customer base, including blue chip enterprises in Asia, e-commerce platforms and global multi-national corporations. Both parties will work in partnership to ensure service continuity for customers and employee engagement.

With this acquisition, STT GDC will further expand and strengthen its global data centre network to span four geographies, including strong bases in two of Asia’s largest growth markets - India and China. Tata Communications will retain a stake in the colocation market in these important markets, while honing its focus on the development and introduction of its advanced managed services portfolio (including IP, cloud enablement and unified communications services), and continuing to invest in its strategic partnerships globally.

Vinod Kumar, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Communications, said: “This new joint venture partnership will now allow us to hone our strategic focus on advanced services within the data centre that enable digital transformation for our customers, in addition to infrastructure services. Our new partnership also gives us the opportunity to redeploy capital behind other areas of our business, to further broaden the portfolio of services we can offer to meet our customers’ current and future requirements.”

Sio Tat Hiang, Executive Director, ST Telemedia, said: “ The latest addition of India to the STT GDC network will be a major impetus to advance the company’s ambition to be a significant global data centre service provider. We are pleased to partner with an established company like Tata Communications, to pursue opportunities in the growing data centre market.”

In 2014, the Indian data centre business of Tata Communications Limited was transferred to its wholly-owned subsidiary Tata Communications Data Centers Private Ltd (TCDC) through a High Court approved process. Today, TCDC owns and operates a total of fourteen data centres, including facilities in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune.

Rangu Salgame, CEO of Growth Ventures and Service Provider Group, Tata Communications, added: “ Our companies share a very similar ethos and set of values: both organisations are long term investors, focusing on performance, value and growth. Both organisations also share an impeccable commitment to customer service excellence. Looking ahead, I am confident that our customers can expect the same high levels of service as they receive today and a partner who will bring additional offerings to enable their cloud and ecommerce growth. It is this aligned commitment to our customers that makes this strategic partnership so compelling.

Bruno Lopez, CEO of STT GDC, added, “With this investment, STT GDC is well positioned to become one of the largest Asian-headquartered data centre companies with significant platforms in key markets where we continue to see strong growth. STT GDC will focus on leveraging the complementary strengths and experience of this partnership to deliver superior solutions to meet our customers’ data centre, cloud and managed services requirements as their businesses grow in India, Singapore and beyond.”