I Squared Capital Forms a New Cold Storage Infrastructure Platform in Europe

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--I Squared Capital, through its ISQ Global Infrastructure Fund III, has formed Cube Cold Europe, a cold storage infrastructure platform to invest up to $350 million in cold storage facilities across strategic areas, such as ports and logistics hubs, in Europe. The platform has assembled a portfolio with 75,000 square meters of capacity for approximately 90,000 pallets across two seed assets in the Benelux region and serving customers near the ports of Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, and Rotterdam. Cube Cold Europe recently completed its second acquisition with Northfreeze, a leading independent cold storage and temperature-controlled transportation provider in Belgium and has identified a substantial pipeline of high-quality acquisition targets.

Cold storage is an essential service that performed well throughout the Covid-19 pandemic as supply chain disruptions created increased demand for storage across many industries.

“We see strong growth potential for cold storage from the globalization of trade, secular shifts in consumer behaviors, and the growing complexity of global food supply chains. In Europe in particular, the sector is highly fragmented, and we see an opportunity to employ our expertise in building complex and versatile infrastructure platforms,” said Mohamed El Gazzar, Partner of I Squared Capital in London. “We are looking for additional assets in strategic locations that could benefit from operational optimization and innovation. For example, as cold storage facilities are high energy users, we plan to install renewables or other on-site generation facilities to ensure resilience, manage costs and lower carbon emissions.”

About I Squared Capital: I Squared Capital is an independent global infrastructure investment manager focusing on energy, utilities, digital infrastructure, transport and social infrastructure in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. The firm has offices in Hong Kong, London, Miami, New Delhi, Singapore and Taipei.