BC NA December 2020

ALIGNED
128
“This is a capital-intensive business. You
need capital partners that understand
the business”
—
Andrew Schaap,
CEO, Aligned
client using Aligned’s data centres
which saw its traditional 6pm to 3am
peak capacity shift as schools closed
and the workforce headed home.
For Aligned’s customers, its modular,
dynamic and highly scalable data
solutions came into their own. And
its finance partners have allowed the
Dallas-based company to innovate its
supply chain to meet the accelerated
delivery needs of customers, specifically
in the hyperscale space.
Another sunny day in Aligned’s
fair-weathered pandemic came
in September, when it closed a
billion-dollar sustainability-linked
financing led predominantly by ING.
This is the first U.S. data center sustainability-linked
financing and also
one of the largest private debt raises
in data center history.
Previously, after joining Aligned
in 2017, Schaap struck a deal with
Macquarie Infrastructure and Real
Assets (MIRA) (“not your traditional
private equity”) to recapitalise the
business. “This is a capital-intensive
business. So, you have to have capital
partners that are highly capable of
understanding what the business
looks like.”
Traditionally, MIRA invests in infrastructure
such as roads, bridges and
DECEMBER 2020