Aligned Energy Lands $375M Loan From Goldman Sachs

By Gail Kalinoski

Weeks after announcing plans to build a new data center campus on 28 acres in Northern Virginia, Allied Energy has closed on a $375 million secured loan from Goldman Sachs Bank USA to help fund that two-phase project and other long-term developments.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the results of this transaction. The structure of this financing provides the necessary capital to facilitate the development of our expanding data center portfolio,” Anubhav Raj, CFO of Plano, Texas-based Aligned Energy, said in a prepared statement.

The loan, inclusive of extension options, expires in October 2023. Dechert LLP served as legal counsel to Goldman Sachs USA and Cooley LLP represented Aligned Energy.

“Along with the investment made by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners earlier this year, as well as the continued support of BlueMountain Capital Management this significant funding with Goldman Sachs positions us to aggressively address the exponential growth and strong demand we’re seeing in the industry,” CEO Andrew Schaap said in a prepared statement.

The MIP financing, described only as “significant additional capital,” was announced by Aligned Energy in late April. At that time, the firm stated it would be jointly controlled by MIP and the BlueMountain Capital funds.

Aligned Energy offers adaptable colocation and build-to-scale solutions to cloud, enterprise and managed service providers. The firm’s approach to infrastructure deployment allows it to deliver the data center platform like a utility and makes it accessible and scalable as needed to its clients.

Growing the business

The firm’s latest development in Ashburn, Va., was announced about two weeks ago and calls for Aligned Energy to deliver two facilities serving cloud and hyperscale users with a total IT capacity of 180 megawatts by 2019. In the first phase, 80 megawatts will be delivered from a 370,000-square-foot building. The second building, with 510,000 square feet, will provide an additional 100 megawatts. The facility will feature the company’s patented data center cooling technology and it will be expandable up to 240 megawatts. Driven by demand from hyperscale cloud users, Northern Virginia is the data center sector’s largest market in the U.S. and the world.

In March, the firm began redeveloping its Salt Lake City-area data center to transform the 300,000-square-foot building into a colocation facility for cloud providers and enterprise clients. The 60-acre campus in West Jordan, Utah, is expected to be completed this quarter.

Aligned Energy also has a data center facility in Dallas, as well as one in Phoenix, which is being expanded to increase colocation space and meet the strong client demand in the area. Phoenix is also one of the top data center markets in the world. In March, Schaap told Commercial Property News that tax advantages, a diverse economy and an established tech hub were among the reasons why Phoenix was a growing area for data center colocation needs in the western U.S.

Images courtesy of Aligned Energy