ING and UniCredit Act as Global Coordinators for the €375 Million Financing to Retelit

WHY THIS MATTERS

This €375 million financing highlights the accelerating investment flowing into Europe’s digital infrastructure—particularly data centres, which are becoming as critical as traditional utilities. As demand for cloud services, AI workloads and data sovereignty increases, countries like Italy are positioning themselves as regional connectivity hubs. Expanding capacity in Milan and Rome strengthens Southern Europe’s role in global data flows, reducing reliance on northern European infrastructure.

ING and UniCredit have structured a €375 million mini-perm project financing for Retelit Datacentre, the data centre arm of leading Italian telecommunications and ICT operator Retelit. 

The operation intends to support the expansion of the national data centre interconnection platform, backing the construction of three new data centres across Milan and Rome. This will expand Retelit’s current 18 MW total capacity by 27 MW, reinforcing Italy’s role as a critical connectivity hub in Southern Europe. 

Retelit Datacentre operates Italy’s leading interconnection platform, with 38 data centres including the Avalon Campus in Milan, serving telecommunications operators, businesses, public administrations and global technology companies. 

ING and UniCredit acted as Structuring Banks, Debt Advisors, Global Coordinators and Bookrunners on the transaction. ING Italia also served as Facility Agent.

Andrea Diamanti, CEO and Head of Wholesale Banking at ING Italy, said: “ING has long been recognised as a pioneer in data centre financing, with over 200 transactions completed globally. This deal reflects the strength of our Wholesale Banking division in Italy and the value of our global network, with ING’s Italian and Dutch teams collaborating closely to bring it to completion.” 

Sicco Boomsma, Global Head Digital Infrastructure Advisory at ING Bank: “this is a very relevant transaction for the Italian DC market, allowing enterprises, carriers and cloud service providers to optimize their DC communications function across a network of distributed DC infrastructure in Italy. It was an absolute honor to support the company in this transaction during a phase of transition in the group, where they carved out the DC platform from the carrier-based business. During this process, we structured a brownfield PF structure for them, which was really well received in the market.”  

The deal underscores ING’s commitment to financing infrastructure that aims to balance growth with responsibility. Retelit powers its data centres entirely from renewable energy sources and maintains Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) levels below the market benchmark.

Since entering this sector almost two decades ago, ING has closed over 200 financing structures for data centre operators including Equinix, Atlas Edge and Ark Data Centres – one of the largest sustainability-linked loans ever completed for a UK operator at the time. As Europe’s leading data centre finance house, ING has financed some of the largest data centres deals across the continent. 

ING remains committed to financing the digital infrastructure underpinning Europe’s technological future.

FF NEWS TAKE
Data centres are quickly becoming the backbone of the digital economy—and banks want in.

ING and UniCredit’s role in this deal signals growing confidence in data infrastructure as a high-value, future-proof asset class. As AI, cloud computing and digital services scale, financing is shifting toward the physical infrastructure that powers them.

For financial institutions, this is more than a lending opportunity—it’s a strategic play on the future of Europe’s digital independence and competitiveness.