Greg Boorer (CEO, Canberra Data Centres)
Canberra Data Centres' (CDC) contribution to 48 per cent owner Infratil's bottom line in the year to 31 March nearly doubled, from NZ$83.9 million to NZ$161 million.
NZX- and ASX-listed investor Infratil bought its 48 per cent stake in 2016, embarking on a process to revitalise its portfolio by increasing exposure to data infrastructure and renewable energy.
In July last year Infratil followed that up with a 49 per cent share in a NZ$3.4 billion deal to buy Vodafone NZ alongside Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management.
Infratil reported an eight-month earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and foreign currency (EBITDAF) contribution from Vodafone NZ following completion of the acquisition of NZ$154.9 million.
According to Infratil's accounts, however, its share in Vodafone NZ made a negative contribution to earnings of NZ$24.7 million. Infratil reported its 49 per cent share in Vodafone's loss as NZ$45.1 million.
Credit: Vodafone NZ
Vodafone NZ said while its underlying profit was consistently, slightly up year on year this turned to a loss before tax due in part to finance costs associated with a syndicated lending facility and in bigger part to depreciation and amortisation charges after acquisition.
CDC operates 80MW of installed capacity across three accredited and connected datacentre campuses in Canberra and Sydney, up from 67MW in 2019.
These facilities provide highly secure outsourced co-location datacentre services to Australian Government entities and third party service providers, including Microsoft for its Australia Azure cloud regions.
Earlier this month, Infratil announced that CDC would build two new facilities in New Zealand totalling 20MW, due for completion in 2022. The announcement came after one from Microsoft that it would establish a New Zealand Azure cloud region.
CDC is also investing in two new Australian sites totalling 50MW.
The accounts show CDC achieved EBITDAF (net earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, foreign exchange and financial derivative movements, revaluations, impairment, gains or losses on the sales of investments) was A$117.5 million, up A$45.4 million or 63 per cent from the prior year.
Infratil's share of that was NZ$59.6 million, up from NZ$37.6 million in 2019.
CDC's current run-rate EBITDAF, however, was A$135 million due to strong performance and revenue growth from new data centres and additional utilisation in existing data centres.
CDC was also benefiting from increased reliance and demand for resilient digital infrastructure due to COVID-19.
Forecast reported EBITDAF for the 2021 financial year was in the range of A$145 to A$155 million.
Infratil reported an overall net surplus for the year from continuing operations of NZ$508.8 million, compared to NZ$64.4 million in the prior year.
It made capital investment of NZ$920 million during the year, including NZ$541 million in renewable energy and NZ$227 million at CDC.
Infratil also disposed of its shares of NZ Bus, Perth Energy, student accommodation provider ANU PBSA and Wellington-based public transport technology developer Snapper during the year.
Infratil reported divestments and tightening of its portfolio were "now substantially complete".
