I do and here you go.NextDC has hired investment bank Macquarie...

I do and here you go.

NextDC has hired investment bank Macquarie Capital for the competition to buy $US10bn data centre giant Global Switch.Macquarie is working with the Australian listed company to find a financial partner. A raft of global private equity firms are likely to be keen on the business.Information memoranda for the JPMorgan and UBS-run contest are due out this week.The global data centre space is awash with merger and acquisition activity right now, prompting questions about the future of NextDC.

Like most other technology stocks, NextDC shares surged during the pandemic. The shares have fallen slightly but are still higher than before 2020. But that is unlikely to stop buyers.There have been four major deals in the global data centre space in the past two years, with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Global Infrastructure Partners buying CryusOne, American Tower buying CoreSite, Digital Realty buying Interxion and DigitalBridge last year buying Switch in the US for $US1bn.NextDC may not have had a takeover proposal, but big investors are circling.The company’s game plan is understood to be pressing on with its own strategy for growth by way of acquisitions.Now that the auction has started for Global Switch, NextDC is setting its sights on that business, owned by China’s Jiangsu Shagang.The understanding is that NextDC wants to buy the Asia-Pacific arm of the operation, which accounts for about a third of earnings.In Australia, Global Switch owns two major data centres on the western edge of Sydney’s central business district, spread over 73,000sq m.Major local data centre investors include Morrison & Co, which purchased Canberra Data Centres for just over $1bn in 2016, and private equity firm Brookfield, which bought Australian data centres from Blackstone in 2019.Also in 2019, Macquarie Asset Management bought a majority stake in Sydney-based data centre company Air Trunk, in a deal that valued the business at more than $3bn.With data centres remaining attractive takeover targets, some analysts are also looking more closely at the $1.3bn Macquarie Telecom, a cloud, data centre, cyber security and telecom company.Market experts say that the business requires additional capital to continue investment.Any buyout would require the approval of founder David Tudehope, which owns more than half of the business.A recent research note by RBC Capital Markets analysts said NextDC, Infomedia, Hansen Technologies, Pushpay and Altium were attractive takeover targets in the technology space.The analysts said Macquarie Telecom, Appen, EML Payments, Fineos and Megaport were less attractive.