Iron Mountain today announced its Q1 2021 earnings and provided updates on its data center leasing activity, development pipeline, and data center joint venture in India with Web Werks.
Overall, Iron Mountain operates 15 data centers, representing 136.4 megawatts of power capacity. Specifically, these data centers comprise 3.5 million sqft, in the United States, Europe, and Asia, supporting 1.3k+ customers.
Financial Performance in Q1 2021 – Iron Mountain
In Q1 2021, Iron Mountain reported data center revenue of $71.1m, a 1.7% decrease quarter-over-quarter, and data center adjusted EBITDA of $30.4m, a 4.2% decrease quarter-over-quarter. As a result, the company’s data center EBITDA margin compressed to 42.8% in Q1 2021 from 43.9% in Q4 2020.
Operational Performance in Q1 2021 – Iron Mountain
New Leases
In Q1 2021, new lease signings were $13.8m, up 34% from the $10.3m of signings during Q4 2020. In total, the new lease signings represented 9.0 megawatts of power capacity, implying pricing of $127 per kW per month.
Iron Mountain’s new leasing included a 6-megawatt signing in Phoenix with Microsoft. Also, the company signed a 1-megawatt lease in Singapore with an e-commerce and gaming company. Finally, the remainder of the company’s data center leasing for the quarter took the form of smaller, colocation deals.
For full-year 2021, Iron Mountain is targeting leasing of 25 megawatts to 30 megawatts of power capacity.
Renewal Leases
Iron Mountain signed renewal leases representing $12.1m of rental revenue during Q1 2021. On a cash basis, these lease renewals were down 1.9% and on a GAAP basis, lease renewals were down 1.2%.
Churn
Iron Mountain had customer churn in Q1 2021 of 2.3%, which is an improvement from churn of 3.9% in Q4 2020. However, the company’s churn remains elevated when compared to its typical sub-1.5% average for prior quarters.
Utilization
As of Q1 2021, Iron Mountain’s data center portfolio utilization declined to 85.2% from 87.4% in Q4 2020. However, this was in-part driven by bringing new capacity on-line in London, which has not been pre-leased.
Development Pipeline – Iron Mountain
As of Q1 2021, Iron Mountain’s data center development pipeline comprised $283m, with 49.3 megawatts of power capacity under construction. Overall, these projects are 65.6% pre-leased.
Key markets where Iron Mountain has capacity under construction include Phoenix (19.0 megawatts), London (9.0 megawatts), Frankfurt (9.0 megawatts), Amsterdam (6.1 megawatts), and Northern Virginia (6.0 megawatts).
Additionally, in Q1 2021, Iron Mountain acquired a new land parcel adjacent to its campus in Northern Virginia, which will support 32 megawatts of power capacity at full build-out. Indeed, this acquisition increases the company’s total potential capacity in the Northern Virginia market to 145 megawatts.
India – Data Center Joint Venture
In April 2021, Iron Mountain closed on its joint venture with Web Werks, a colocation data center provider in India. As part of the formation of the Web Werks joint venture, Iron Mountain made an initial investment of $50.1m (3.8bn Indian Rupees). In exchange for this investment, Iron Mountain received a 39% interest, in the form of convertible preference shares, in the Web Werks joint venture.
Additionally, Iron Mountain will make $100m (7.5bn Indian Rupees) of additional investments, over the next two years, into the Web Werks joint venture. Over time, Iron Mountain expects to acquire a majority interest in the Web Werks joint venture.
