What Building Owners Can Learn from Rogers’ Exit from Data Centres
- Octavian Vasilovici
- Sep 2, 2025
- 3 min read
Every so often, a headline from outside the world of commercial real estate deserves a closer look. Not because of the news itself, but because of what it reveals about ownership, strategy, and value. Rogers Communications’ recent sale of nine Canadian data centres to InfraRed Capital Partners is one of those stories.
At first glance, it may seem like a telecom company tidying up its portfolio. In reality, it reflects a principle that every building owner and facilities leader should pay attention to: you do not always need to own the asset to benefit from it.
We are highlighting this story because it illustrates a shift that is happening across multiple sectors. The organizations that thrive are not always the ones that hold the most property. They are the ones that know when to invest, when to partner, and when to exit. That is as true for data centres as it is for office towers, mixed-use complexes, and industrial facilities.
Why Rogers Sold
On August 14, 2025, Rogers announced the sale of its nine Tier II/III data centres, totaling about 49 MW of capacity, to InfraRed Capital Partners, an infrastructure investment arm of Sun Life. The decision was not about leaving technology behind. It was about sharpening focus.
Rogers has been carrying significant debt from the Shaw merger, and the sale allows it to reduce that burden. More importantly, it positions the company to concentrate on its core strengths: telecom networks, enterprise services, and customer connectivity. By divesting facilities that require enormous capital and operational resources, Rogers can redirect attention to the parts of its business where it creates the most value.
Timing also mattered. With AI driving unprecedented demand for computing power, data-centre valuations are peaking. Selling now allowed Rogers to lock in that value and pass the heavy lift of future expansion to an investor built for long-term infrastructure plays.
This is not a one-off. In 2020, Bell Canada sold 25 facilities to Equinix, making a similar choice to focus on services while leaving ownership and scale to specialists.
Specialization and Scale
The Rogers sale underscores a broader truth about modern infrastructure: specialization matters. Building and operating a telecom network is one skillset. Running AI-ready data centres is another entirely. The capital demands alone, from cooling systems and power upgrades to cybersecurity, run into the billions.
Telecom companies excel at selling connectivity. Infrastructure funds excel at scaling facilities and maximizing uptime and efficiency. Both sides create more value by focusing on what they do best.
For Canada, this signals a future where data centres are increasingly treated not as telecom assets but as core infrastructure. That shift has implications for financing, sustainability, and how these facilities are integrated into local grids and communities.
Lessons for Building Owners
So why should commercial building owners pay attention to a telecom divestiture? Because the underlying principle applies directly to your portfolio.
Owning an asset outright is not always the best path to profitability. Sometimes, the smarter move is to enter a partnership, outsource a service, or sell to an operator better equipped to unlock value. What made Rogers’ data centres attractive to InfraRed — reliable grid access, cooling potential, and scalability — are the same fundamentals that drive value in commercial buildings.
If your facility has the right infrastructure and expansion capacity, it may be worth more to a specialist operator or investor than it is to you as the owner. The key is knowing where you add the most value and where someone else might be better positioned to do so.
Rogers’ sale of its data centres is not a retreat but a repositioning. The company chose to step back from bricks and mortar in order to strengthen its focus on connectivity and services. For building owners, the lesson is clear: resilience does not come from holding the most assets. It comes from making deliberate choices about which assets you operate, which you share, and which you let go.
At OptiBuild, we help building owners and facilities directors step back from day-to-day operations and see the bigger picture. Our Smart Building Owner’s Roadmap is designed to guide these strategic decisions and help you determine when to invest, when to partner, and when to pivot.
