The Acquisition Fresh off their acquisition of Mapletree Redwood Data Centre Trust (MRDCT), Mapletree Industrial Trust (SGX: ME8U), or MIT, has announced another acquisition proposal, this time for a data centre and office property in Virginia, USA. The new target is valued at between US$205 million and US$266 million. The data centre cum office sits on freehold land and already has an existing tenant. According to MIT’s announcement, the tenant is a “multinational company with strong credit standing”, and the lease is for at least five years. Strong growth prospects The quick succession of data centre acquisitions demonstrates MIT’s bullishness on the data centre segment and demonstrates the resilience and prospects of the data centre segment amid the pandemic, which has accelerated digitalization. According to research from Ericsson, global mobile data traffic is expected to grow by 31% per year. The rise in digital traffic is expected to drive enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure,...