William Stein, CEO of Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), joined REIT.com for a CEO Spotlight video interview at REITWorld 2015: NAREIT’s Annual Convention for All Things REIT at the Wynn Las Vegas.
Digital Realty supports the data center and colocation strategies of more than 1,000 firms across its portfolio of data centers located throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Stein offered an update on the company’s efforts to achieve the highest possible risk-adjusted returns at the asset level.
“We’ve made excellent progress in the last 18 months,” he said. To achieve this, Digital Realty is matching its core competencies of scale, colocation and connectivity against its target customer base. Digital Realty’s target customers are focused in the information technology and financial service sectors, along with the social, mobile, analytics, and cloud and content (SMACC) sector.
In terms of future growth, Stein explained that Digital Realty is planning to expand by growing existing campuses. The firm is also looking for new sites within existing markets and targeting entirely new markets.
As a case in point, Digital Realty announced in mid-November that it had closed on the acquisition of 126 acres of undeveloped land in Virginia’s Loudoun County for $43 million. The site is located less than a mile from Digital Realty’s existing data center campus in Ashburn, Virginia.
In terms of new markets, Digital Realty has already announced interest in Frankfurt and Tokyo, Stein noted. Singapore is also particularly attractive for the company, he said. The most attractive U.S. markets are Northern Virginia, Dallas and Chicago, Stein added.