VIRTUS secures £2.45bn from 13 banks for UK and European data-centre build

VIRTUS has secured a £2.45bn financing package from 13 banks for a UK and European data-centre build, including a £1.2bn green capex facility available through term and revolving tranches. The green facility accounts for roughly half the package, by simple division, and it is the element of the structure the material describes in the most detail.

The coverage does not name the 13 banks, give pricing or tenor, or break out how the £1.2bn divides between the term and revolving portions. A revolving tranche is ordinarily drawn and repaid against capital spending as it is incurred rather than taken in full at close, which suggests the facility is built to track a construction schedule rather than a single purchase.

Panelists at an Oct. 6 forum said data-centre power draw is climbing from 40 megawatts to gigawatts, and flagged neocloud credit risk. Sam Stockdale of Link Logistics and Jeffrey Moerdler of Haynes Boone discussed the scaling power needs at that session. For a bank group funding new capacity, the harder question is whether power is contracted and deliverable rather than whether the shell gets built, which suggests the underwriting turns on supply and interconnection as much as on construction.

Clarion hired Magesh Srinivasan as senior vice president for power and energy strategy, working from Dallas across its leasing, development and investment teams. The firm says the role is meant to produce a portfolio-wide view of power availability and infrastructure constraints. Read together, the hire and the VIRTUS package address the same constraint from opposite ends: a bank group funding capacity in Europe, and a US manager building internal expertise on where power can be found. The material draws no connection between the two, and the parallel is an observation rather than a reported link.