Shonfeld Engineering owned by Yossi Shonfeld, has hired Jefferies Group investment bank to handle negotiations for the sale of 20-30% of data centers company Shonfeld Data Services (SDS) at a company valuation of $3.6 billion, sources inform "Globes." Shonfeld is following in the footsteps of Azrieli Group (TASE: AZRG) and the Papouchado family's Serverfarm, both of which sold stakes in their data centers companies for a handsome profit.
Shonfeld would like to retain control of the company while also receiving between $700 million and $1 billion in cash.
Market sources believe that there are European infrastructure and telecom operators interested in buying the stake. Talks are currently taking place with companies in several European countries but no deadline has been set for concluding any deal. Any deal is likely to reflect a multiple of 25 on SDS's EBITDA.
SDS has five data centers including one under construction. The largest of these data centers is in the Ligad industrial zone in Modi'in, which hosts cloud services for Google and Microsoft in Israel. SDS's data center under construction is in Beit Yehoshua which will host Google in the first stage.
Yossi Shonfeld has not responded to this report.
Only last week Azreli Group sold its 32% stake in Compass Data Centers at a company valuation of $5.7 billion, which will provide it with an accounting gain of NIS 1.3 billion, before tax. Last month the Papouchado family, which owns Red Sea Real Estate sold control of its US data centers company Serverfarm for $600 million.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 28, 2023.
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