Spain's Nabiax sells LatAm business to Actis for $500 million

(Reuters) - Nabiax, a Spanish group specialised in data processing centres, has sold its Latin American business to British private equity firm Actis for about $500 million to focus on growth in Spain, it said on Tuesday.

The portfolio includes 11 data centres in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and a small exposure in the U.S. state of Florida, Actis said in a separate release. Nabiax will continue to own and operate its European assets.

"We will mainly focus on organic growth at our data centres, though we do not rule out inorganic growth," said Nabiax Chief Executive Emilio Diaz, adding that the main goals were to attract talent, improve sustainability and secure access to energy for future projects.

Nabiax started operating in 2019 and has since expanded capacity in Spain by 230% to 26 megawatts for data processing. It is 80% owned by Asterion Industrial and 20% by Telefonica.

Actis said the Latin American data centre market is forecast to grow 2.5 times in size over the next five years, driven by expansion of data creation and artificial intelligence.

(Reporting by Matteo Allievi; Editing by David Latona and David Goodman)