Mapletree Investments and Mapletree Industrial Trust have formed a joint venture (JV) to buy 14 data centres in the US at about US$750 million ($1.02 billion).

According to Tham Kuo Wei, CEO of the manager of Mapletree Industrial Trust, the proposed acquisition will increase the contribution of data centres to the trust’s portfolio, from 6.7% to 16%.

The data centres sit on freehold land and have a total net lettable area of approximately 2.3 million sq ft. According to Mapletree, the portfolio of data centres have an occupancy of 97.4% as at Sept 30 and is leased to 15 tenants across industries such as telecommunications and financial services.

Source: Mapletree

Besides a long weighted average lease to expiry (by gross rental income) of approximately 6.7 years, only 1.3% of the leases are expiring within the next three years, adds Mapletree.

The proposed acquisition is expected to be completed in 4Q2017.