Global law firm Dentons, working together with Kirkland & Ellis, represented global investment firm KKR and fund manager Global Infrastructure Partners in connection with certain matters related to the closing of the US$15 billion acquisition of data center operator CyrusOne, Inc., as well as the financing by a consortium of lenders led by Goldman Sachs. In November 2021, Dentons advised the acquiring consortium on the successful bid.
CyrusOne is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that designs, builds and operates data centers.
The company has 50 data centers across North America, South America and Europe, which serve more than 1,000 customers.
Partners Perry V. Zizzi and Stewart M. Middleman, together with Evan Z. Lazar, Co-Chair of Dentons Global Real Estate Group, led and coordinated the cross-border project team of more than 150 Dentons lawyers from 16 countries across four continents. The multi-competency team advised the client on real estate, financing, employment, corporate, energy, ESG, environmental, intellectual property, telecoms, information technology, data protection, sanctions, cybersecurity and litigation in Europe, North America, Latin America and Singapore. The team leaders for each country included: Bruna Gobbi (Brazil), Vivek Bakshi (Canada), José Manuel Larrain (Chile), Bernardo Cardenas (Colombia), Maxime Simonnet (France), Christoph Papenheim and René Dubois (Germany), Andrew Muckian (Ireland), Rogelio Lopez-Velarde (Mexico), Pieter van Delden (Netherlands), Melanie Lim and Valerie Ong (Singapore), Itxaso López Diez (Spain), Rob Thompson and Alex Coulter (UK), and John Pietila (US). Aleksandra Minkowicz-Flanek led the employment law team, while Ewa Rutkowska-Subocz led the environmental law team across multiple jurisdictions.
Evan Z. Lazar said, “We were happy to pull our global team together to quickly and efficiently assist KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners with this transaction. As the world’s largest law firm, Dentons is ideally placed to support clients on investment transactions of this kind.”
Perry V. Zizzi added, “We are delighted that Dentons’ cross-practice teams across four continents could support global powerhouses KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners to complete this strategic acquisition and financing in a cutting edge industry such as data centers.”
