Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) shares are on the move on Tuesday morning.
At the time of writing, the industrial property company's shares are up 8% to $31.48.
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Why are Goodman shares rocketing?
This morning, Goodman announced that it has signed an agreement with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) to establish a A$14 billion (8 billion euros) European data centre partnership.
According to the release, the 50/50 Partnership involves an initial total capital commitment of A$3.9 billion (2.2 billion euros) to develop a portfolio of data centre projects in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Paris.
The partnership will be known as the Goodman European Data Centre Development Partnership (GEDCDP) and is CPP Investments' first data centre partnership in Europe, and will significantly add to its data centre portfolio.
Goodman revealed that the partnership's portfolio will comprise four projects totalling 435 MW of primary power and 282 MW of IT load. There will be two centres in Paris (PAR01 and PAR02), one in Frankfurt (FRA02), and one in Amsterdam (AMS01).
All projects provide speed to market with secured power connections, planning permits, and substantially progressed site infrastructure works. This means that construction can commence by 30 June 2026.
This isn't the first time the two parties have worked together. CPP Investments has partnered with Goodman Group since 2009 across Australia, Asia, The Americas, and Europe. It notes that the GEDCDP follows the establishment of the Goodman Hong Kong Data Centre Partnership and other data centre partnerships in Europe and Japan.
AI demand
Commenting on the news, Goodman's CEO, Greg Goodman, said:
A portfolio of this size and quality – located in Europe's FLAP markets – is rare. These powered locations are highly sought after to meet the rapidly growing requirement for cloud computing and AI adoption, particularly when they offer speed to market and delivery certainty. The quality and scale of this Partnership make it ideal for our long-term relationship with CPP Investments. We're pleased to be investing alongside them for their entry into the European data centre market.
This sentiment was echoed by Max Biagosch, who is senior managing director and global head of real assets for CPP Investments. He said:
We are pleased to expand our longstanding partnership with Goodman Group and establish a strong European foothold in the data centre sector across key Tier 1 markets, aligned with our global data centre strategy. By combining Goodman's extensive development capabilities and powered landbank, with our global expertise in digital infrastructure investments, this partnership allows us to capitalise on a compelling growth opportunity for the long-term benefit of CPP contributors and beneficiaries.
