Starting news article english 21 December 2011

Clifford Chance advises e-shelter on a partnership with ABRY Partners and structured financing

Clifford Chance advised the e-shelter group in the context of US private equity house ABRY Partners LLC, Boston, acquiring a stake in e-shelter and the completion of a structured financing in an amount of EUR 229 million. The financing was provided by UniCredit Bank AG (Mandated Lead Arranger and Facility Agent), Bayerische Landesbank and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG.

e-shelter plans, constructs, operates and provides security to high availability data centres. With ABRY Partners, the company has secured a partner having extensive data centre experience and who invests in the future of e-shelter group. The growth strategy receives sustainable support with the new financing.

In addition to ABRY Partners' investment and the financing, Clifford Chance also advised on new project developments related to e-shelter's Frankfurt and Rüsselsheim sites. The projects comprise an area of approx. 17,600 sqm for data centres to be constructed in four stages. The first building is scheduled to be completed in November 2012.

Customers of e-shelter include banks, telecommunication companies and IT-service providers. In addition to the company's main headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, it operates further data centres in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, London and Zurich.

The Clifford Chance team was led by partners Cornelia Thaler (Real Estate) and Dr. Uwe Schimmelschmidt (Tax) and included counsel Joachim Hasselbach, associate Dr. Robert John (both Private Equity) und counsel Anette Hofmann (Tax) – all Frankfurt – as well as partner Christian Trenkel (Real Estate), partner Barbara Mayer-Trautmann and senior associate Christian Hentrich (both Banking & Capital Markets) – all Munich, and transaction lawyer Katrin Rötering (Real Estate, Düsseldorf). Partner Claudie Grisius and associate Lauren Harris (both Corporate) from the Luxembourg office also worked on the matter.