en.Wedoany.com Reported - On July 2, Schroders Capital in the UK acquired a data center asset located in Trafford, Manchester. The facility was previously held and listed for sale by Invesco on behalf of St James’s Place, with market documents indicating an asking price of £15.35 million. The asset covers approximately 47,700 square feet and is leased to Equinix.

Located at St James Place, the data center was commissioned in 2012 and is described in marketing materials as one of the more modern and technologically advanced key network facilities in Manchester. The project is a retail colocation data center, where space can be leased to multiple institutions for server deployment, differing from wholesale colocation data centers used by a single tenant. The retail colocation model relies more heavily on stable power, cabinet density, network connectivity, operational services, and customer partition management capabilities. Clients typically include enterprises, cloud service providers, network service providers, or institutions requiring third-party facilities to host IT systems. The two-story facility has a power capacity of 3 megawatts, with cabinet power density reaching up to 20 kilowatts, making it suitable for hosting enterprise servers, network nodes, backup systems, and edge computing equipment.

This acquisition by Schroders Capital targets regional data center asset allocation in the UK. Manchester is a significant regional digital infrastructure market, with concentrated demand from finance, media, research, enterprise services, and cloud applications. Data centers here must serve local enterprise IT systems while also accommodating disaster recovery, network nodes, and regional computing needs beyond London. As AI applications, cloud migration, and enterprise digitalization continue to grow, regional data centers do not necessarily need to follow a hyperscale model; stable colocation facilities, network connectivity, and scalable power capacity still hold investment value.

This transaction also reflects continued interest from infrastructure funds in data center assets. Invesco's sale of the asset is related to its previously announced orderly exit arrangement for its real estate fund; CBRE provided advisory services to Invesco, while Aquira Real Estate advised Schroders. For the buyer, existing tenants, mature facilities, clear power capacity, and a location in Greater Manchester reduce the uncertainties of developing a data center from scratch. For the data center operational chain, the asset's future value will continue to be influenced by facility utilization rates, lease renewals, power costs, equipment upgrades, energy efficiency improvements, and changes in customer demand.