Data centre company Teraco plans to buy a large piece of vacant industrial land in Brackenfell, Cape Town. The Competition Commission made the deal public in a statement on Thursday.
The Commission said it backed the purchase. It recommended that the Competition Tribunal approve the deal without any conditions.
“The Commission is of the view that the proposed transaction is unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any market,” it said.
The buyer is Teraco Properties, a Teraco subsidiary. The Commission said this business invests in property that houses and supports Teraco’s data centres.
Teraco Properties already owns two properties in Cape Town. They house the company’s CT1 and CT2 data centres.
CT1 is in Rondebosch. It is a 3MW facility that covers 2,500 square metres.
CT2 is in Brackenfell and is much bigger. It covers 18,000 square metres and has an IT load of 50MW.
The land Teraco wants to buy is also in Brackenfell. According to the Commission, it will be bought with all its existing structures and fixtures.
The Commission said the land is already zoned for general industrial use. It said no business runs on the property.
“No improvements or buildings constructed thereon, except for the substation infrastructure, which provides an electricity supply to the property,” the Commission said.
The Commission said Teraco is controlled by Digital Realty, a company registered in Maryland in the United States.
“Digital Realty is a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is not controlled by any single shareholder,” it said.
Teraco told MyBroadband it was still “extremely early” in the process. The company did not say what it plans to build on the land.
A Teraco spokesperson said the Competition Commission became involved because of “ongoing discussions” about data centres in and around Cape Town.
The spokesperson said the plans still depend on many factors. Nothing is concrete yet, the spokesperson said.
The company said it will talk to the City of Cape Town about its plans. It said the land is near its CT2 data centre.
Cape Town’s public mapping system showed that the land sits right beside CT2. It covers about 66,025 square metres in the Morgan Industria area, off Tiber Road.
Google Maps images from 2026 showed some structures on the lot and what looked like building work. MyBroadband said it is not known if this work is linked to Teraco.
The deal comes after a dispute over another planned data centre in the city. American firm Equinix wanted to build a billion-rand facility at King Air Industria Park.
Those plans stalled after a petition. It was launched by the Cape Town Housing Assembly, the South African Human Rights Commission and UK non-profit group Foxglove.
Even so, the Competition Commission said Teraco’s plan does not raise serious public-interest concerns.
Teraco now needs final approval from the Competition Tribunal before it can go ahead. The City of Cape Town did not respond to MyBroadband’s request for comment.
Source: this article is based on reporting by MyBroadband. Image: MyBroadband. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Business desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Anelisa Nkuna covers business and money news for Tzaneen Voice. Anelisa reports on the rand, fuel prices, interest rates, jobs, Eskom, Transnet, farming and company results. The aim is simple: explain what the numbers mean for household budgets, small businesses and workers in South Africa.