Thibault Contat Desfontaines

Thibault Contat Desfontaines

Co-Head of Infrastructure Private Equity Europe UBS Asset Management

Thibault is responsible for originating, executing and managing direct investments in infrastructure, as well as fundraising in Europe. He is also a member of the UBS AM Global Investment Committee of Infrastructure Equity. His work is focussed on Enterprise Collocation data centres investment, including greenfield developments. Thibault’s team recently developed Datum datacentres asset as a strategically positioned pure-play colocation platform serving high-resilience verticals with strong momentum and scalable growth potential in the UK. They identified and executed the bolt-on acquisition of Teledata to expand Datum’s footprint in Manchester, and are now expanding with the new MCR2 facility (launched in July 2025). A second Farnborough DC is about to begin development/construction, to be completed in H1-2027. A sustainability-driven culture has been fostered through targeted initiatives, including cooling upgrades, HVO fuel adoption, solar panel installation, flood resilience measures etc. across all Datum’s facilities.

Day 1 | 3rd November

9:20 AM Panel: Choosing the right investment route: How investors and operators can assess risk and return across operating assets, powered land, platform strategies and the wider data centre ecosystem

Investing in data centres does not always mean owning the buildings. This session maps the main routes into the sector, from powered land and development to stabilised operating assets, platform strategies, debt and GPU financing, and the different risks each carries, from permitting and construction delivery through to contract renewals once a site is live.

Explore whether investors are being properly compensated for each layer of risk, how due diligence differs across hyperscale, enterprise colocation and AI-focused assets, and how tenant credit is being assessed as neoclouds take a growing share of demand.


Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Thibault.

Download The Latest Agenda