Communications Infrastructure:Key Data Center REIT Takeaways from REITWorld -ALERT

At REIT World in Phoenix, we met with the management teams of CyrusOne(CONE), Digital Realty (DLR), Dupont Fabros (DFT), Equinix (EQIX), Interxion(INXN) and QTS (QTS). While the stocks of data center REITs have been undersubstantial pressure over the past week and through 3Q earnings results, the datacenter REITs continue to see strong demand from cloud service providers andenterprises. The pipeline of deals remains strong and the companies generally reportedsolid 3Q earnings and bookings, but a few companies saw or expected some elevatedchurn. We expect bookings to remain volatile on a quarterly basis, but qualitativeevaluations of potential deals and historical 4 quarter averages provide significantcolor. Finally, we see high levels of pre-leasing as another positive indicator ofdemand and development plans that are not speculative.