Knight Frank grows data centres team and valuations offer

The strategic move by Knight Frank sees Burgoyne, who is a Partner in the firm’s Valuations team, take on an international remit and formally lead its valuations offer in the data centres sector. Burgoyne has over a decade of valuation experience and joined Knight Frank in 2013. His new role will concentrate on expanding the firm’s EMEA and APAC data centres valuations services and will focus on providing valuation advice to operators, landowners, major institutional investment houses, and real estate companies.

The team also welcomes two new joiners with Jonathan Leung joining as a Surveyor following a number of years working in Hong Kong including at both CBRE and List Sotheby’s International Realty, whilst Lizzie Quacquarelli joins as a Graduate following rotations in the firm’s Analytics and Valuations teams. These appointments will further enhance Knight Frank’s market-leading data centres advisory services and follows a period of rapid growth with the team now comprising 13 individuals globally.

The dedicated valuations team brings extensive experience of the global data centre markets and provides services such as phased development appraisals, financing reports, sale and full/ partial leaseback analysis, M&A support, fund valuation and purchase reports.

Stephen Beard, Co-Head of Global Data Centres at Knight Frank, commented: “We are thrilled to grow the team further with the promotion of Alex and appointments of Jonathan and Lizzie. This cements our strategy to provide our global client base with unrivalled commercial opportunities internationally combined with market-leading insight. Alex’s role will ensure we have valuation resources in all the major and emerging data centre markets and will be crucial in further building our global remit, working closely with our international occupier and capital markets teams.”

Alex Burgoyne, Global Head of Data Centre Valuations at Knight Frank, said: “The data centres market is growing exponentially and is one that our leading valuations team can strategically tap into. Becoming part of the rapidly growing data centres team is an exciting next step in my career at Knight Frank and I am looking forward to bringing my valuations experience to the sector and providing the firm’s global clients with a bolstered advisory offer.”

Knight Frank’s data centres team is a core part of the firm’s global service line, enhancing its well-established centre of excellence in the US, including its partnership with Cresa, and drawing on its wide-reaching international network including the key FLAP-D markets and the core APAC markets. The team offers a full spectrum of data centres market services around the globe specialising in investment, site transactions and occupier advisory, in addition to valuation, consultancy and research. Having grown rapidly, the team regularly advises leading financial institutions, streaming providers, data entre operators, developers and landowners, capitalising on the firm’s commercial and land expertise.

In the past 12 months the global team has undertaken 40 data centre transactions including colocation acquisition, land acquisition and platform trades totalling a combined value of $2 billion.  

In recent years the data centre market has seen a significant increase in demand with a record $34.9 billion invested into the sector globally in 2020 whilst EMEA markets last year experienced take-up rise 11% higher year-on-year and a 19% increase in new supply.