Spark takes next step in search for data centre investor

Thursday, 1 May 2025

Spark has confirmed it has begun actively seeking an investor to buy a partial stake in its data centre business.

The company first announced in February that it was keen to explore a partnership to help fund the business.

The Australian Financial Review speculated the business could be worth up to $1.2 billion and reported that adviser Jarden had been appointed to find a buyer for about a 50% stake.

Spark confirmed in a statement to the NZX today that it had launched a process to find an investor, while adding that a deal was not yet certain.

Spark has previously cashed-out about $1.2b from the sale of its cellphone towers to Canadian investors, in what amounts to a lease-back arrangement, returning a portion of the proceeds to shareholders.

The company wouldn’t comment on whether it was its intention to return some of any proceeds from the sale of a stake in its data centre business to investors, or whether all of any proceeds would instead be used to grow the business.

“We have nothing further to add at this stage,” a spokesperson said.

Its data centre business could be potentially harder to value than its cellphone towers.

The market for data centres is booming globally.

However, much of the action has been captured by global giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google, which have used them to provide so-called “public cloud computing” services that anyone can purchase.

Spark has predominantly played in the slower-growth “private cloud” market, by offering to host clients’ own computing systems.

The company’s share price has more than halved over the past year, in part because of more conservative views emerging over growth potential of its IT service arm and its overall competitive advantage in the wider telco market.