Prior notification of a concentration (Case M.11292 – AUSTRALIANSUPER / DIGITALBRIDGE / PSP / VANTAGE EMEA) – Candidate case for simplified procedure
Date: 2023-10-10
Institutions: Directorate-General for Competition, European Commission
Subjects: data processing, digital infrastructure supply, economic concentration, investment company, merger control, pension scheme








C_202300171EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
Series C













C/2023/171


10.10.2023






Prior notification of a concentration
(Case M.11292 – AUSTRALIANSUPER / DIGITALBRIDGE / PSP / VANTAGE EMEA)
Candidate case for simplified procedure
(Text with EEA relevance)
(C/2023/171)


1.   
On 28 September 2023, the Commission received notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1).
This notification concerns the following undertakings:






—


AustralianSuper Pty Ltd, as trustee for AustralianSuper (together referred to as ‘AustralianSuper’, all from Australia),










—


DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (‘DigitalBridge’, United States),










—


Public Sector Pension Investment Board (‘PSP’, Canada),










—


Vantage Data Centers Europe S.a.r.l. (‘Vantage EMEA’, Luxembourg), currently jointly controlled by DigitalBridge and PSP.




AustralianSuper, DigitalBridge and PSP will acquire within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) and 3(4) of the Merger Regulation joint control of Vantage EMEA.
The concentration is accomplished by way of purchase of shares.


2.   
The business activities of the undertakings concerned are the following:






—


AustralianSuper acts as a trustee of an Australian industry public offer superannuation and pension fund and is responsible for its operation and management,










—


DigitalBridge is an investment firm that invests either directly or through its managed funds in areas of digital infrastructure,










—


PSP is a corporation that invests contributions received from pension plans of Canadian Federal Public Service, Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Reserve Force.






3.   

The business activities of the undertaking Vantage EMEA are the following: indirectly owning and managing a portfolio of 23 data centres campuses that offer colocation services (e.g., provision of space, network, physical security, etc.) for third party servers and other computing hardware stored by third parties in the data centre.



4.   
On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope of the Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved.
Pursuant to the Commission Notice on a simplified treatment for certain concentrations under Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (2) it should be noted that this case is a candidate for treatment under the procedure set out in the Notice.


5.   
The Commission invites interested third parties to submit their possible observations on the proposed operation to the Commission.
Observations must reach the Commission not later than 10 days following the date of this publication. The following reference should always be specified:
M.11292 – AUSTRALIANSUPER / DIGITALBRIDGE / PSP / VANTAGE EMEA
Observations can be sent to the Commission by email or by post. Please use the contact details below:
Email: mailto:COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu
Postal address:





European Commission




Directorate-General for Competition




Merger Registry




1049 Bruxelles/Brussel




BELGIQUE/BELGIË







(1)  
            OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1 (the ‘Merger Regulation’).

(2)  
            OJ C 160, 5.5.2023, p. 1.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2023/171/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)