London, September 8 2009 – Data Centre News, the newsletter tracking data centre investment and expansion, new build, M&A activity, and market developments has announced that in partnership with AHV Associates LLP, a corporate finance advisor based in London, a new market index will be launched and included in each monthly edition.

AHV has created a capitalisation-weighted index of large companies quoted companies on exchanges in the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia that are directly involved in the data centre sector. This index consists of the large data centre companies and large, quoted, global companies whose performance is directly related to the data centre industry. M&A activity in the sector will also be tracked with the latest deals described including valuations and commentary.

“The index offers a good way of evaluating the market performance of data centres,” commented Andrew Harrington, partner at AHV. “It reveals that the sector is yielding good returns for the leading public companies engaged in data centres, and that virtually the entire industry has outperformed the major market indices.”

Companies that make up the AHV Datacentre Index include: Akamai, Citrix, Cogent, Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros, EMC, Emulex, Equinix, EU Networks, Internap, Iomart, Limelight Networks, Macquarie Telecom, Navisite, Netapp, Rackspace, Savvis, SGI, Switch and Data, Telecity, Terramark, and VMWare.

The index reveals that so far few large scale data centre companies, or those focused on data centre related services, are listed on the London Stock Exchange and there are only a small number in Australia and the Far East. This highlights the dominant positions of US companies in the sector. It also suggests the opportunity for growth in both regions.

Despite a downturn in commercial property values, data centres continue to attract high levels of investment with more than USD15 billion globally committed in the last 12 months, according to BroadGroup research and more projected to follow.

“Data Centres are emerging as an asset class in their own right,” commented Steve Wallage, managing director of BroadGroup Consulting. “Data Centre operators are choosing from a range of options open to them including bonds, private equity, and IPOs, although in the current climate, constraints do remain and for unlisted companies, the options are more limited.”

As sector business plans come to consider the impact of cloud computing, globalization and green, BroadGroup believes that financing and investment models will continue to emerge.

For further information please contact consult@broad-group.com
For information about this year’s 3rd Finance and Investment International Forum for data centres please visit
www.datacentres.com/fif