Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (DLR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
January 6, 2021
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Michael Rollins
analystWell, thanks, and good afternoon, and welcome back to Citi's Global TMT West Conference. For those of you I haven't had an opportunity to meet, I'm Mike Rollins, and I cover the communication services and infrastructure categories for Citi Research. We do have disclosures available on the conference registration site. I'm also joined by Michael Bilerman, who leads Citi's Global Real Estate Investment Research franchise, and we co-cover Digital Realty and the data center category together. It's our pleasure to welcome Back Digital Realty's Chief Financial Officer, Andy Power, to the conference. And joining Andy is John Stewart, SVP of Investor Relations; and Matt Mercier, SVP of Finance. So Andy, John, Matt, thank you for joining us today.
Andrew Power
executiveThanks for having us back, and happy new year, gentleman.
John Stewart
executiveHappy new year.
Michael Rollins
analystHappy new year. Well, this isn't our usual format. Usually, we're together, so we appreciate this virtual opportunity to catch up on Digital Realty. And so Andy, if you can just kick us off with the strategic and operating priorities as you now look to the year ahead.
Andrew Power
executiveYes. Thanks, Mike and Michael, again, for having us back here in virtual Vegas. Really appreciate this. It's a little shorter plane ride. So kind of rushing to 2021, I think, absolutely, the priority is -- first and foremost, we're still not out of the woods of this pandemic, so the health and safety of our employees, customers and partners is kind of mission #1 as we kind of steer the ship globally into safer waters. When it comes to Digital Realty, I think the other 3 major themes, which are consistent with a little bit of what we've been saying at the end of last year, is we're now coming up, I guess, 2.5 months shy or so of the 1-year anniversary of our closing on Interxion. That integration in a successful and seamless fashion has been our priority for 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, and will certainly be -- continue to be priority #1 for Digital in 2021, coming together and making sure we've got that strategic combination, 1 plus 1 is more than 2 combination. Two, really continuing our focus on PlatformDIGITAL, becoming the preferred provider to the global enterprise, global enterprise 2,000. We've been investing a lot in that muscle throughout the last 12-plus months across multiple fronts, seeing the fruits of our labor and continue to want to accelerate our reach and our offering in terms of PlatformDIGITAL for the enterprise. And then last but not least, I would say, extend our lead or press our advantage when it comes to the service providers or the hyperscaler side of the business, widen that moat via new market entries, extending the runway of growth for those major hyperscaler customers with land purchases and up-tiering our intimacy and partnership, really continuing to serve as their trusted global infrastructure partner and kind of make sure we don't take our eye off the ball on that front is kind of priority #3.
Michael Rollins
analystThanks. So I want to get our audience involved as soon as possible. So we're going to throw out the first live survey question. It is anonymous. So we're just tracking the percentages, not the people. And while we wait to get those results, I'll read it in a moment, we'll go to another question. But the question that we wanted to ask our audience first is does Digital Realty need to acquire additional assets to strengthen or expand the global strategy? And the choices are: yes, expect Digital Realty to continue to add new markets; yes, expect digital realty to further consolidate retail-centric data centers and campuses; and third, no, digital has all the assets it needs and can just expand through development. So we're going to go to the polls. We'll be back with that in a moment. I'll throw it over to Michael to ask a question.
Michael Bilerman
analystGet off of my mute. As you think about -- there's -- obviously from a proceeds perspective, as you think about raising capital, how do you sort of earmark 2021 between selling assets, doing joint ventures and then raising debt versus equity capital? Given how the market has shifted into more of a value side, clearly, Digital and the rest of the data centers and then a lot of other sectors that performed exceptionally well last year have pulled back, making your equity cost of capital a lot more expensive relative to where it was last year. So how do you sort of think about capital allocation and capital raising within that context?
Andrew Power
executiveYes. I would say, I don't think we've lost our religion or our financial strategy at the highest levels of our mix of debt and equity and really trying to, what I call, mirror the right side of the balance sheet to support the left side of the balance sheet. So our leverage targets, fixed charge coverage and really our -- really, things that support our investment-grade rating has not changed despite plummeting base rates and the like. So we've not taken a different posture to delever or lever up or anything like that. We're sticking to what we think is the right long-term financial strategy for the company. When it comes to the mixes of those components, I would say, maybe first on the debt side, our preference has always been longer duration to max the long runway of our assets, more fixed rate than floating rate to insulate the balance sheet from that risk and using diversification across different currency markets or bond markets to kind of match the FX profile, and you can see that was continued just yesterday where we accessed the Eurobond market, Green Eurobond market, which also has the nice benefit of tapping into our sustainability efforts, and did a 10.5 year at a quite attractive coupon, which checks a lot of those boxes, including that FX hedge, given that we've -- we're now an $8.5 billion or more European company on the heels of Interxion. On the equity funding portion of that, to kind of maintain our target leverage levels, you're right, we have a couple of tools. We have common equity, which we utilized a bit in 2020 under our ATM and accessed, I think, prudently to make sure our leverage levels were intact, and that was at the, call it, high 160s type pricing. And then another tool we've used in the past has been private capital, both through outright sales of what I call noncore and through joint ventures. Right now, the balance sheet is not in an immediate need of any equity capital at this very minute, if you look at our leverage and capital and funding requirements. And I would say if I prioritized the order of where I go next, I would say a sliver of noncore outright dispositions, which also has the added benefit of, I think or I believe, strengthening the growth profile and attractive to our portfolio. And I would call those similar to what we've done in the last year in terms of characteristics, but smaller size. I'd follow that at current stock price levels with a joint venture capital. And then at current stock price levels, I'd put our common equity as the tail wagging the dog here, given that we have sold off a little bit, although these stock prices are quite volatile, it's 1 day up, 1 day down. So -- but again, we're not in a pressing need for that equity capital, so we made sure we kind of planned ahead to not be reliant on any one of those forms.
Michael Bilerman
analystAnd how do you think about using your stock as a currency in acquisitions, right? So yes, arguably, there's a difference in there if you're able to do an exchange? I guess, how do you sort of view your equity today?
Andrew Power
executiveI -- the -- we've used that tool many times. We've used that tool in construction with public companies like our Interxion transaction or DuPont Fabros transaction. We've used that tool and taken advantage of the tax-incentivized format, although we'll see how long that sticks around given the -- what played out in the last 24 hours in Georgia. And so I think we have a very timely and good view of our cost of equity and the value of our portfolio and our assets and our platform, and we use that calculus in terms of any different types of strategic M&A. Each one of those scenarios are all different, and it's not just how we are valued, but it's what we're essentially requiring, right? So public companies in our sector could have had the same sell-off that we had and our relative valuations could be in the same place and the fact that circumstances kind of all dictate the answer there.
Michael Bilerman
analystThanks. Mike?
Michael Rollins
analystThat should bring us to a good place to look at the poll results from our survey. Let's bring those into the conversation, see what the buy side things you should do. So yes, expect DLR to continue to add new markets, 38%; 38%, yes, expect DLR to further consolidate retail-centric data centers and campuses; and no, they have all the assets they need and just keep going with development, 25%. Andy, what are your thoughts on what lies ahead for the expansion strategy for Digital?
Andrew Power
executiveYes. I mean, I would say we as an organization have worked quite hard over the last, at least -- I'm coming up on my sixth year at Digital, so for an extended time period to put, what I'd call, the critical puzzle pieces together to create a leading and distinguished global multiproduct offering, which extends now across 24 countries, 49 metropolitan areas and 6 continents. And there's certainly parts of the world where I feel like we've covered the waterfront, and that's from a product's perspective, that's from a market perspective. And I would put North America and Europe kind of certainly leaning that way. That doesn't mean we've got every single nook and cranny fully covered, and we've done some tuck-in activity along the ways in those parts of the world. And I would say Asia Pacific is the one place in our portfolio that I feel that has the greatest ability for moving the needle in terms of its pie contribution to Digital and its product offering. At the same time, we're doing a tremendous amount of organic activities launching the colocation and connection product across numerous Asia Pacific markets, entering new Asia Pacific markets in a organic-like fashion, i.e., go do it ourselves, not buying anything, any businesses. So I mean, we continuously attempt to be as customer-led in focus as possible. And hearing and supporting our customers where they need us to be with the capacity and the solutions has been that critical road map that's led us to where we are today, which I believe is a leading global platform across the product spectrums that will stand the test of time.
Michael Rollins
analystI'm going to throw another survey question out there for our audience. We're going to come back to it in a few minutes, not right away, but I'll just sort of tease where the conversation is going to end up, which is what development yield should digital target to balance growth with returns? And we gave a few choices: 7% or less, 8% to 9%, 10% to 11% or 12% or greater. So we'll see what our audience thinks about that in a few minutes. But switching gears to more of the current environment. So with the second wave of the pandemic in some of the cities in the U.S., are you seeing any new challenges or new changes in the way customers are responding, the ability to operate the business?
Andrew Power
executiveWe've been very precautious and anticipatory as I think we probably could be, and I feel very fortunate to many other team members at Digital, whether it was our supply chain in terms of locking in vendor agreements on the inventory standpoint. And I think our posture of making sure our frontline workers when it comes to our critical infrastructure are safe and protected. And we have not seen a dramatic shift in the last several weeks across the major markets. And I -- that is a very up-to-the-minute type of analysis that is very subject to change because there are parts of our business, and we were hit by this in the spring, where various markets, whether it was to real health and safety needs, including our construction workforce in a market like Singapore that is very reliant on a migrant workforce that has dormitory living combinations getting impacted and made sure those workers are protected, or just general governmental municipality restrictions that could slow the flow or the access for our team members through the sites. But so far, we've not seen an impact in what I'd call the -- our offering or delivery of our capacity. We are very alert to monitoring that day by day. And a customer side, I've not seen any shift in behavior on the customer side in terms of their buying rhythms or their interactions with us.
Michael Rollins
analystOn the 3Q earnings call, the management team outlined the revenue aspiration for 2021, which I believe was described as double-digit revenue growth. And I think when we've talked before, first an organic rate of growth in the high single digits when you sort of anniversary Interxion for the full year. Is that still the plan for '21? And can you unpack what's driving the improvement in that rate of organic revenue growth, whether it's product or region?
Andrew Power
executiveI mean you got to bear with us because we're going to roll out the formal 2021 guidance in -- I think it's a month and a week's time on our fourth quarter earnings call, where Mr. Bilerman is going to chast me for the time of day we do that call, as expected and deserved. And luckily, he's on mute, commenting right now.
Michael Rollins
analystI was going to say should we put a survey question in to move it to...
Andrew Power
executiveBut I don't think we have any different posture on what I was describing then, and I really was just referring to some kind of simple math on what you've now seen on 2 reported quarters of signings, contribution relative to our revenue base. And obviously, that top line to, what I described, is the mid-single digits bottom line or core FFO per share growth has a little bit of a disconnect in 2021. I would say -- kind of answer in 2 parts. I mean I think our execution is what has been driving that, right? You've seen now -- I mean, it's not just 2 quarters, it's been probably 6, maybe coming on 7, consecutive quarters of stair stepping up in terms of new revenue production. And I would test -- that's execution broadly, both on the enterprise vertical and the hyperscaler segment. And I would -- you can see, as we've repositioned the portfolio in the year prior, selling either joint venture interests or 100% interests in a 100% occupied or leased capacity and we continue to grow and invest in higher-growth opportunity markets and diversifying the product offering, that's led to that acceleration of top line. And I think the actions we're taking in terms of continuing to invest in our pursuit of enterprise offering and PlatformDIGITAL and our new market expansions, which opens us up to a broader addressable market, I think paints the picture to support those top line growth ambitions. I do think the top and the bottom line should converge over time. This 2021 has obviously got a couple of things not working in our favor in there, one being the moving parts in our cap structure finally have settled out in the end of the third quarter with our equity forward now being pulled down and no longer having to deal with that in terms of moving parts in terms of capitalization, but will hit us in our full year in 2021. And then COVID, I'd mention. Even with this incremental lockdown surge or spike in activity, I believe we're going to have a pickup on our spend, be it some travel and entertainment in the back half of the year and more materially R&M throughout the year as -- given that we've kind of went to the most protective staffing levels and we will have to bring that R&M back. We cannot keep the car running on no oil, past the oil change date forever here. So those are creating the headlines and I think will dissipate when you move to 2022 and beyond.
Michael Rollins
analystThat's helpful. And I was wondering if you could help our audience today just better understand what the bookings environment looks like for the company. And I'm thinking about it in a few respects. Based on the way that you now report, there's sort of that enterprise retail-centric bookings, there's the hyperscale piece, which we know can be episodic quarter-to-quarter, and then there's this interconnection layer that then kind of sits on top of all of this. Is there a way just to help frame how to think about that in any given quarter? And if you want to share some insights on funnel and signings, just in terms of the types of activity you're seeing for 4Q, I'm sure our audience would also appreciate that color.
Andrew Power
executiveI -- apologies, I had no plans to preannounce our fourth quarter signings on this call. I think we've -- I believe we've now put up, as I mentioned a second ago, a steadier and more consistent track record across the board, which, again, I think, goes back to the work we've done as an organization from repositioning our portfolio and our go-to-market on many fronts. And I look at the 2 segments in terms of their contributions. If you look at 2 -- 3Q, most recent quarter, a strong quarter at $89 million total signings. I would say, particularly strong in terms of the less-than-a-megawatt interconnection segment, which I would say is much more the enterprise-oriented customer, but still had some key strategic wins on the service provider, hyperscaler multi-megawatt front. And -- but it came out to about a 50-50 blend, or just shy of 50-50 blend, when you -- call it, smaller, more granular, less-than-a-megawatt interconnection versus greater than a megawatt. And no massive, call it, super hyperscale type signings. Quarter prior had very -- also strong enterprise interconnection signings of less than a megawatt, not quite as strong as the quarter 3Q, but it kind of got lost in what was our all-time record of $144 million of total signings because we did had a 20-plus megawatt signing in that particular quarter. I think these trends are going to continue into 2021 due to the broader demand backdrop. And I believe that we are gaining more share of this business and more share of our customers' wallet and executing quite well. And I see no reason why those efforts aren't going to continue into 2021.
Michael Rollins
analystOne of the questions that's come up on the hyperscale front during this conference is the yields, the development yields, that are out there. And maybe you could share it by region, like what are you seeing in the major regions? What hyperscale development yields look like? And is there still downward pressure? Are they stabilizing or getting better?
Andrew Power
executiveNo, it's still very not only regional but market-by-market specific in terms of supply/demand dynamics. North America is certainly on the low end of that front and certainly the reason our overall development yields are kind of at the bottom at 9% stabilized return on our cost and that's due to the fact that the concentration of our development activities in North America is Ashburn, a market where I think we performed quite well but a market that is still not out of the woods and has been impacted by a significant amount of competition in the last several years now, and supply in certain pockets outpacing demand. And even in that market, I think the benefits of our global sales force selling into that, our installed customer base, including many -- you probably could say, all the hyperscalers with installed infrastructure wanting to grow with adjacency and that longest runway of growth in Loudoun County for those hyperscalers to grow has created a competitive advantage that has allowed us to win business at not the lowest economic commercial package. And we think that, that, along with these deep relationships in, call it, 10, 20, 30, 40 locations with some of these hyperscalers continues to work to our benefit, and they place value on that and has allowed us to maintain the returns we deliver, even in a highly competitive market. And you leave Ashburn and North America -- or leave -- before you even leave North America, there's certainly brighter spots in North America, whether it's Toronto in our legacy DFT site; or Santa Clara, which is the -- certainly the tightest market in North America; we're certainly generating premium returns to that 9% level. As you leave North America and go to EMEA, I would say the competition is less, the barriers to entry are greater. Look, not only -- we call it EMEA, we call it Europe, but each one of these countries, cities, municipalities have unique nuances in terms -- to navigate. And even for the hyperscalers, we're able to generate premium returns to what we're generating in North America and Ashburn, kind of climbing up that range of returns. And then you kind of go to other parts of the world where it's Latin America where, certainly, even in the hyperscale return, we're, call it, certainly into the double digits numbers. And there's even some markets in Asia Pacific where just the plain old supply/demand dynamics, like in the country of Singapore that has limited new supply where we've increased rates broadly and the hyperscalers are essentially paying the higher rates that we've -- because we've got some incredibly attractive capacity in a completely supply constrained market, so those returns in Singapore could be 13-plus-percent for a hyperscaler type of an offering. So again, it goes back to supply and demand in addition to, I believe, getting more share by having -- being in the markets where the hyperscalers need us, the land runways that they need to grow and being that trusted infrastructure partner for them around the globe.
Michael Rollins
analystLet's bring in the survey results in terms of what our audience thinks about development yields. And on this, 60% are suggesting 8% to 9%, 20% was 7 or less, 20% was -- if you could bring that back up, please, that would be great. 20% is 10% to 11%. And so you have a little bit of a distribution there. The development yield...
Michael Bilerman
analystAndy, how do you...
Michael Rollins
analystGo ahead, Michael.
Michael Bilerman
analystYes. What I was going to say is one of the drivers of the development yields coming down is clearly the interest in the space on acquisition cap rates, right? So as acquisition cap rates have come down, so have development yield, just given -- to maintain that positive spread. I guess, how do you think, Andy, about going forward? How much more cap rate compression, which obviously is a boost to your asset value but arguably could lead to further compression and development yields and could limit, in some ways, overall rent growth given the fact that someone's going to be willing to accept a lower development yield, that means they're accepting a lower rent? And I recognize there's nuances in every market and your comments about demand and supply are very valid, but how are you sort of thinking about the asset market where there is tremendous interest relative to development?
Andrew Power
executiveI'll hit on that question in a second, but I was going to make an observation and I'll tee you up for a response. It's very interesting how you frame development yields. And there's 2 schools of thought to think about that. Are you framing the risk premium from development over asset level, like you described as asset level pricing? Or are you framing it over our cost of capital, the premium of our company? And this is a very -- this is a great forum for this because I'm speaking to a leading telecommunications analyst and a leading real estate analyst, and I would bet you guys may come at this from different angles but with some overlap. I've come more from the school of thought of the asset level triangulation than the place to the marginal equity or WACC cost of capital premium. And I would say, to your comment, I -- and this is, I believe, for -- the lion's share of where the development capital, which is for -- it's not for the most irreplaceable assets in the data center industry. It's not for the 350 Cermaks or 56 Mariettas or sovereign houses, it's for the rest of the data center industry but that is in core markets, all the good attributes of asset quality you would seek. I believe that those cap rates have actually kind of come down to what I view will likely be close to their lows, unless we have a dramatically incremental change in a lot of factors. And maybe there's marginal room, 50-ish basis points of swing way here, but whether it's a 5.5% cap or something in that range, 5.75%, and I triangulate that off of the joint venture we did a year ago, which was a 6% cap, and -- but I do believe that the quantity of buyers with interest is going to gain because I don't think the pool is deep for that type of investment today. The lion's share of private capital investment today is not seeking the equivalent to core real estate type returns, the return provided by already constructed, already leased, locked in cash flow asset. They're more seeking a higher-octane return and wearing the associated risk of that. So that's my nuanced answer that is I don't think cap rates are going to plummet a lot further, I just think the data points behind the buyers of that will deepen, which I do think strengthens asset values and creates incremental conviction around the value of our underlying assets.
Michael Bilerman
analystAre you any further along in trying to create structures to harvest that development value creation sooner?
Andrew Power
executiveWe're continuing to do a lot of homework on that front, having a lot of dialogue with various sources of capital. But we are -- partly due to our -- we don't need the capital, but we want to make sure we make the right strategic move in this arena here, not just the right-now move. So we have not been sitting idle on this topic, but we're not on the precipice of making some major announcement. And quite honestly, my gut -- this is partly also related to needs of capital, this would not be an answer that I'd see us moving forward to late '21 at the earliest.
Michael Bilerman
analystThanks, Andy.
Michael Rollins
analystWe're going to tee up our final survey question of the session, and we'll get to this in a little while. And it's what impact will cloud have on Digital Realty's business model over the next 3 years? We really simplified the answers: net positive, neutral or net negative. But before we get to that, Andy, can we spend a little bit of time on just the SG&A intensity? And as you're looking to do more for your enterprise customers, and we'll get to the cloud in a moment, but whether it's PlatformDIGITAL and thinking about maximizing the service delivery to your customers, offering the right software-based solutions to access information they need or to manage their accounts with you, how should investors think about that SG&A intensity and whether you need to step that up for a period of time or whether it's good where it is?
Andrew Power
executiveYes. We are -- I would say, and it may have not been this obvious on the surface given the amount of moving parts between dispositions, joint ventures, West and building interaction, but even on an organic basis at legacy Digital, we have been funneling investment into those arenas because we understood that these are places where it was part of PlatformDIGITAL that you need to invest in order to penetrate a broader addressable market or customer opportunity. And you've seen it externally through our thought leadership pieces, be it the Data Gravity Index, our recognition with industry influencers, our MarketplaceLIVE event that we resurrected 2 years ago and went virtual this past fall, a host of things that probably flow through into some of the commentary in my earnings script book, more and more of our customers allowing us to announce with them our partnerships, our landing on PlatformDIGITAL, including the growth of our sales organization, including quota-bearing reps and sales supporting functions. So we've been doing that over the last 12 months, for sure. Our growth in that category spend is certainly been double digits. So -- and that has been part of -- it kind of goes lockstep with repositioning the portfolio, bringing on incremental leadership to the table, investing in that part of the business in the go-to-market and making sure that we're doing as much as we can to make sure we're as value-add to that addressable market of the enterprise customer as possible.
Michael Rollins
analystAnd just coming full circle with some of your earlier comments, does that mean that 2022 can be a year where EBITDA growth is better than revenue growth and core FFO per share growth is better than EBITDA, so you get that operating leverage and the net financial leverage and you're able to deliver bottom line growth at or above the top line?
Andrew Power
executiveJohn, will you let me skip 2021 guidance? We don't just do that, I'll just give you '22 here and call it a day.
John Stewart
executiveI was just going to suggest we could skip to '21.
Andrew Power
executiveKind of going back to my prior comments, Mike, the -- I do see a narrowing in that. But holistically, we've been not focused on wringing out EBITDA margin at every turn here. We've been focused on investing for growth, and we see a long runway of growth here. I think we've extended our lead when it comes to the hyperscaler customers as being their preferred trusted partner around the globe. But we have full understanding that we're coming from behind when it comes to the enterprise. We're quite pleased with the success we've had in 2020 so far, and we feel optimistic that's going to continue into 2021, but we knew that it couldn't be penny wise, pound foolish when it comes to this -- that pursuit. So that is not the priority, and you saw that in how we approached our combination with Interxion, where I think that -- not -- leaving synergies on the table near term is another way of investing in your go-to-market and your sales organization, right? So we put out pretty modest expense synergies because we prioritize growth as a platform and a combined entity there. And I think that, that strategic lens or that approach is going to continue into some part of 2022.
Michael Rollins
analystAnd one other part of the conversation on data centers that we've been having throughout the conference is the concept of the edge and the edge getting closer to the eyeballs in the devices, so the far edge, the micro data center concept. What are you doing to further extend the edge today? What are you considering to do in the future for that? And does this become an important avenue for growth for Digital in the future?
Andrew Power
executiveI think the edge -- personally, the word edge in my one man's opinion is we couldn't have picked a worse word to follow cloud in terms of overall fogginess of definition for our industry. And I -- yes, I get that it sounds exciting, but it could be used for almost anything. So my view of the edge for Digital is not go to every single city or even NFL city, for that matter, in North America or their equivalents outside the States. I -- we've approached this with a very strong view to partnership and product extension, and you saw that in terms of our activity with Vapor IO across a couple of markets, you saw that with our activity on the bare-metal side with high velocity in a market or 2, and I think you're going to continue to see us pursue that in a very open and accessible format. That may have us make an investment here and there, but I don't see us, a, going to every city in a new version of "every city needs a data center because it's an edge play." And I'm not sure we need to be the full owner and operator of micro data centers at towers or C-RANs. And last but not least, most of our major markets across the most population-dense and economic hubs around the world, those 49 metropolitan areas have a topography of multiple physical locations. A campus -- usually at least a campus and a connectivity hub we used to call internet gateways or telco hotels going way back and sometimes multiple campuses, which already lines itself up for edge use cases that could sit and connect with inside our 4 walls. So I do -- I am a believer in the -- where the edge is going in terms of incremental applications and use cases for our customers, which will drive incremental demand for our services and solutions, but I'm not necessarily a believer that we need to own and operate the physical infrastructure for a server in every nook and cranny around the world.
Michael Rollins
analystAs you've assembled the multiproduct portfolio, being able to accommodate everything from small retail to interconnected retail to the hyperscale, are there financial examples that you have now where having all of those products on a single menu is creating a better growth profile or better margin profile for that opportunity?
Andrew Power
executiveMaybe we tackle that question from the 2 major buckets of our customers. Both buckets, we see needs that fall into more network oriented, more compute or legacy retail definitions or legacy, call it, scale -- hyperscale definitions. And we've said for some time, and it's partly a rationale for reconfiguring our public disclosures, is those lines have been blurring in terms of where the workloads land. And whether it's the hyperscaler customer that certainly is going to take multiple megawatts in compute in major markets or position an on ramp, a network node or a hybrid IT solution in a more retail service offering that could be adjacent to that compute on one of our campuses or could be in one of our most highly connected locations. Being at the table with that full solution set across these global markets has been, we view, a way to gain greater share and allow them to consolidate their spend and their partnering with fewer vendors and having us at the table more and more often with them. When it comes to the enterprise customer, the legacy definitions of retail colo are in the rearview mirror. And we saw the power densities, the use cases, the locations, the topographies and architectures have been changed and continue to change, and having a much more diverse offering of product offerings and flexibility and agility around our capabilities there as -- where the enterprise puck is really going. Certainly, in hybrid IT solutions, certainly in more connectivity to more service providers and cloud providers. So we think that these businesses are blended and will continue to blend. And it's a virtuous cycle because every enterprise is seeking some form of cloud consumption and every cloud is seeking some form of enterprise customer, and bringing them together in one house when it comes to a platform globally, we've got -- view it as the right strategy.
Michael Rollins
analystIn our final minute, is there anything that you want to highlight that you feel is underappreciated by the market today or anything over the next year that our audience should be mindful of?
Andrew Power
executiveThat's a good one. Underappreciated by the market or a highlight for next year. I -- you guys know me quite well. We've worked a little bit together back in the day and the last 6 years. Kidding aside on the harassment of our earnings call, the time of day, I approach a lot of this with humility, but I am incredibly proud of the work of our broader team, not just recently under the pandemic and the frontline workers, making sure the internet is up and running for so many important things that have gone remote and virtual in today's environment, but as we as an organization have really done, I think, a nice job of transforming this company from what it was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, whatever time lines you want to pick. And I think we've not, I was going to say, taken a day off or rest on our laurels just yet because we still see there's opportunity to continue to do that. And we're trying to, again, accelerate our revenue generation and growth while shrinking the denominator or platform with a longer-term, higher-growth, higher pricing power, more demonstratively protected platform globally here. So that's my less-than-elegant 2-second pitch. I'm not sure that's appreciated by the market. I felt more appreciated by the market when our stock price was $30 higher than it is today, so maybe that's one sign of appreciation.
Michael Rollins
analystWell, Andy, John, Matt, we really appreciate you joining us today. Thanks for sharing your time.
Andrew Power
executiveThank you guys so much. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.
Michael Rollins
analystThank you.
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