Irtiaz Ahmad is a Managing Director in
Infrastructure, Power & Renewables and serves as Head of Digital Infrastructure. He joined Solomon Partners in 2021. Irtiaz specializes in advising public and private clients around the world in the Digital Infrastructure & Services sector on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and public & private capital raises.
Irtiaz Ahmad has over 17 years of experience in the Digital Infrastructure & Services sector as an advisor, investor, lender and operator. Irtiaz’s broad spectrum of investment banking experience throughout his career spans across strategic advisory assignments, including advising on sell-side and buy-side mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, minority investments, private placements, fairness opinions, valuations and restructurings as well as capital market solutions, including securitizations, leveraged finance, investment grade debt, ratings advisory, SPACs, IPOs, equity follow-ons, convertibles, hedging strategies and cash management. Over the course of his career, Irtiaz has been actively involved in more than $200 billion of advisory and financing transactions across the Americas, Western Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.
Notable strategic advisory transactions include advising HostPapa on its acquisition of Deluxe Corporation’s (NYSE: DLX) Web Hosting Business, Pegasus Digital Mobility Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: PGSS) on its announced $640 million business combination with The SCHMID Group, Archer Datacenters on its joint venture partnership with Evoque (a portfolio company of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners) and concurrent $200 million equity capital commitment to expand its Nashville data center campus, Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR) on its $3.5 billion acquisition of Teraco Data Environments, Strategic Capital Fund Management on its initial public offering of a next generation digital infrastructure and mobility sector focused SPAC vehicle Pegasus Digital Mobility Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: PGSS), Strategic Capital Fund Management on its formation of a $1.5 billion data center investment platform (d/b/a Strategic Datasphere), Global Switch on its contemplated initial public offering and various strategic & capital structure alternatives, Compass Datacenters on its $720 million privately-placed securitized capital raise, Cologix on its $500 million investment from Mubadala Investment Company, the sale of Netrality Data Centers to Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets (MIRA), Berkshire Partners on its acquisition of Teraco Data Environments, StackPath on its Series B investment from Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) and Cox Communications, Cologix on its acquisition of COLO-D, Brookfield Infrastructure on its acquisition of AT&T’s colocation business (d/b/a Evoque Data Center Solutions), Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM) on its $1.3 billion acquisition of IO’s U.S. data center business, Datapipe on its sale to Rackspace, Cologix on its sale to Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, Apollo Global Management on its take-private acquisition of Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), Telx on its sale to Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR), TelecityGroup (LSE: TCY) on its £2.7 billion sale to Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX), TelecityGroup (LSE: TCY) on its £3.0 billion terminated merger with Interxion (NYSE: INXN), Zayo Group (NYSE: ZAYO) on its $675 million acquisition of Latisys, certain shareholders of Adelphia Communications on bankruptcy-litigation related valuation assessment, FiberGate on its sale to Zayo Group, Vision Communications on its sale to EATEL, Smith Media on the sale of its broadcast TV stations to several parties, Alpheus Communications on its sale to The Gores Group, Triad Broadcasting on its sale to L&L Broadcasting, AdJuggler on its sale to Zenovia Digital Exchange, Schurz Communications on its acquisition of Orbitel Communications and Avaya on its $915 million acquisition of Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions business.
Prior to joining Solomon Partners, Irtiaz worked in Barclays’ Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications Investment Banking group, most recently as a Director leading coverage of the global data center sector. He also worked for Waller Capital Partners, formally a leading TMT-focused merchant bank based in New York, where he executed more than a dozen transactions in the Digital Infrastructure industry, primarily focused on the cable, fiber, data center and broadcast sectors. Irtiaz was previously a member of Citigroup’s Corporate & Investment Banking division in its New York office, focused on executing advisory, restructuring and financing transactions, primarily in the Digital Infrastructure and Technology sectors. He began his career in investment banking at Bear, Stearns & Co. in its TMT group.
