Iron Mountain today announced its Q1 2022 earnings and provided updates on its data center lease signings and development pipeline, with particular success for both of these categories in the markets of Northern Virginia and London.
Overall, Iron Mountain operates 20 data centers, representing 176.8 megawatts of power capacity and 3.7 million sqft. Specifically, these data centers are located the United States, Europe, and Asia, supporting 1.3k+ customers.
Financial Performance in Q1 2022 – Iron Mountain
In Q1 2022, Iron Mountain reported data center revenue of $97.0m, a 7.5% increase quarter-over-quarter, and data center adjusted EBITDA of $42.0m, a 9.3% increase quarter-over-quarter. Therefore, the company’s data center EBITDA margin was 43.3% in Q1 2022, a 0.7% improvement quarter-over-quarter.
Operational Performance in Q1 2022 – Iron Mountain
New Leases
In Q1 2022, new lease signings were $40.3m, up 32% from the $30.5m of signings during Q4 2021. In total, these new lease signings represented 35 megawatts of power capacity, implying pricing of $96 per kilowatt, per month. Notably, new lease pricing was up 3.2% in the quarter.
Geographically, Iron Mountain’s strongest data center markets in terms of new lease signings were London (LON-2) with 27 megawatts of power capacity leased to a single tenant and Northern Virginia / Manassas (VA-2) with 8 megawatts of power capacity leased.
Post Quarter-End
Subsequent to quarter-end (April 2022), Iron Mountain signed a 72-megawatt near build-to-suit (BTS) lease in Northern Virginia. Through this agreement, Iron Mountain is responsible for leasing, on a long-term basis, the land, shell, and a large portion of the installed MEP (mechanical, electrical plant). Further, the lease is expected to commence and begin ramping in mid-year 2024 and has a term of 15 years.
As a result of this leasing strength, for full-year 2022, Iron Mountain increased its target leasing for new/expansion leases from 50 megawatts to 130 megawatts of power capacity.
Renewal Leases
Iron Mountain signed renewal leases representing $20.7m of rental revenue during Q1 2022. In aggregate, these renewal lease signings represented 7.3 megawatts of power capacity, implying pricing of $236 per kilowatt, per month.
On a cash basis, these lease renewals were up 1.5% and on a GAAP basis, lease renewals were up 3.1%.
Churn
Iron Mountain had data center churn in Q1 2022 of 2.0%, a 120 bps step-up from churn of 0.8% in Q4 2021. Still, the company’s quarterly churn levels are in-line with its average of 2.2% over the past four quarters.
Utilization
As of Q1 2022, Iron Mountain’s data center portfolio utilization increased to 90.7% from 89.3% in Q4 2021. Analyzing solely Iron Mountain’s stabilized data centers, utilization was 91.6%, up 40 bps quarter-over-quarter.
Development Pipeline – Iron Mountain
As of Q1 2022, Iron Mountain’s data center development pipeline comprised $610m, with 87.4 megawatts of power capacity under construction. Overall, these projects are 80.7% pre-leased, at sites in London, Northern Virginia, Frankfurt, and Phoenix.
Iron Mountain’s 87.4 megawatts of power capacity under construction includes London (27 megawatts), Northern Virginia (26 megawatts), Frankfurt (19 megawatts), Phoenix (8 megawatts), Amsterdam (5 megawatts), India (1.9 megawatts), and New Jersey (0.5 megawatts).
India – Data Center Joint Venture with Web Werks
As of Q1 2022, Iron Mountain has made an investment of $50.1m (3.75bn Indian Rupees) into its Web Werks joint venture for data centers in India. Presently, Iron Mountain owns a 38.5% equity interest in the joint venture and has marked its stake at $51.3m.
Additionally, by May 2023, Iron Mountain will make $100m (7.5bn Indian Rupees) of incremental investments, into the Web Werks joint venture.
