European logistics firm Panattoni has formed a new data center team in Europe, poaching several former staffers from Colt Data Centre Services (DCS).

Panattoni’s new dedicated data center team will be led by Richard Wellbrock, who joins as managing director of data centers. He arrives from Colt DCS, where he served for more than eight years and left as chief commercial officer. He was previously at Global Switch and Infinity SDC.

Wellbrock said: “Panattoni has an outstanding track record of development at scale and pace. With our team now in place, we’re looking forward to growing the business across Europe, the UK, India, and the Middle East, supporting hyperscalers, cloud providers and enterprise customers with high-quality data center solutions”.

Wellbrock is joined by several other Colt DCS alums. Nick Parker, Panattoni’s head of capital deployment, data centers, also joins from Colt DCS, where he was global senior director of asset management.

John Belton, formerly Colt DCS global senior director of development, and Paul Terry, previously Colt DCS’s global director of development infrastructure, have also joined Panattoni.

Founded in 2005 and traditionally focused on industrial and logistics development, Panattoni has delivered projects totaling more than 23 million sqm across Europe to date. Globally, its portfolio encompasses more than 58 million sqm serving around 2,500 clients, including Amazon, DHL, Fedex, DPD, Coca Cola, Bosch, and Volkswagen.

All four will be based in London and report to Robert Dobrzycki, CEO and co-owner of Panattoni Europe, UK, Middle East, and India.

Dobrzycki added: “This is a significant new chapter for Panattoni. Data centers are essential infrastructure for the modern economy, and we are now building a world-class platform to deliver them. Richard and his team bring exceptional experience and insight.”

The company has made some select moves into the data center market. After dropping plans for a data center development outside London in 2022, the company has filed to develop a data center in Spain and sold a site in California to Amazon for a digital campus.

In North America, Panattoni has said it aims to develop 1GW of data center capacity by 2030.