JLL’s EMEA data centres team will provide a full offering of services to meet clients’ requirements from acquisition, investment, M&A and IT advisory, through to research, valuation and rating.
Alex Tilley joins as a director in the team bringing a strong track record in acquisition, investment and M&A across the data centre sector in EMEA. Previous roles include working in CBRE’s data centre acquisition team and, most recently, he ran his own successful data centre advisory business, working with global occupiers and institutional investors within the data centre sector.
Martin Carroll will join in April 2016 as director to lead the new team. His experience spans more than 20 years and includes prior roles both in consultancy and client-side technical real estate. He will join JLL from CBRE where he has specialised in data centre strategy advice and acquisition globally. Previously, he was head of network property acquisition for T-Mobile.
“With the number of connected devices expected to increase globally from 6.4 billion in 2016 to over 20 billion by 2020, the amount of data that needs to be processed and stored, along with the demands on corporate IT teams, have never been greater, and it continues to grow,” said Ollie Saunders, head of JLL’s alternatives group. “We are witnessing an increase in demand for data centre expertise from clients who want help navigating the unknowns and complexities of this burgeoning area of the market. Our investment in additional expertise in the form of Martin and Alex, enables us to respond comprehensively to the growing demands of our clients, and places us in a market-leading position.”
The continued strong demand for data centre and IT advisory services is also being driven by innovation in, and increased spending on, cloud services, and with consistent growth also predicted by JLL in the colocation segment, the data centre market is in a constant state of evolution.
John Duckworth, lead director of UK occupier services at JLL said: “Martin and Alex’s appointments represent an outstanding team with a combined 30 years’ experience advising in the data centre space. Our clients stand to benefit from our investment in additional cutting edge expertise and new services, complementing our existing holistic service offer to corporate occupiers, both in the UK and internationally. Data centres are now a critical aspect of any occupier portfolio, and we see an increasing level of demand from clients for quality advice in this niche asset class.”
