Latham & Watkins Advises CPP Investments in US$15 Billion+ Joint Venture With Equinix and GIC

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the world's digital infrastructure company®, announced the signing of a joint venture (JV) agreement, subject to closing conditions, in the form of a limited partnership with GIC and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), with the intent to raise over US$15 billion in capital together with its partners. Driven by increasing artificial intelligence and cloud growth, the JV will accelerate Equinix’s xScale data center portfolio which enables hyperscale companies to add core deployments to their existing access point footprints at Equinix International Business Exchange data centers. With the capital raised through the JV, Equinix expects the JV to purchase land to build new state-of-the-art xScale facilities on multiple greater-than-100-megawatt (MW) campuses in the US, eventually adding more than 1.5 gigawatts of new capacity for hyperscale customers. Under the terms of the agreement, both CPP Investments and GIC will each control a 37.5% equity interest in the joint venture, and Equinix will own a 25% equity interest. The closing of the joint venture is subject to the receipt of required regulatory approvals.

Latham & Watkins LLP represents CPP Investments in the transaction with a corporate deal team led by New York partner David Allinson and San Diego partner Ann Buckingham, with New York counsel Alyssa Galinsky and associates Ransel Potter, Victor Wang, and Gabe Marx. Advice was also provided on real estate matters by Orange County partner Hilary Strong, with associate Kimberly Legate-Ford; on intellectual property matters by New York partner Jessica Cohen; on data privacy matters by Washington, D.C. partner Marissa Boynton, with associate Kiara Vaughn; on ESG matters by New York partner Betty Huber and Washington, D.C. counsel Timothy McCarten; on arbitration matters by New York partner Jooyoung Yeu; on sanctions matters by Elizabeth Annis and Ragad Alfaraidy; on energy regulatory matters by Washington, D.C. partners Natasha Gianvecchio and Tyler Brown; and on project finance matters by New York partner Chirag Dedania, with associate Ikechukwu Obioma.