Gabriel Silva

Gabriel Silva is a Partner in the Firm’s Energy and Infrastructure Practice. Based in New York, he advises the full spectrum of infrastructure market participants and other corporate and private equity clients on mergers, acquisitions, dispositions and other corporate transactions. He has a particular focus on digital infrastructure transactions, including deals involving data centers, telecom towers and fiber networks and related infrastructure. Gabriel has led over 40 digital infrastructure transactions in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe involving over $43 billion in the last three years alone. His work is often cross-border in nature, and includes the U.S., Europe and Latin America.

Gabriel has been lauded as a “Rising Star” in Telecommunications (2023) by Law360, as “Up and Coming” (2021-2023) by Chambers Global in Corporate: M&A (Latin America) and as a “Next Generation Lawyer” by Legal 500 Latin America in Corporate M&A (2022-2023;2025). He is additionally recognized by IFLR1000 (2023); Chambers Latin American Corporate/M&A (2022-2024); Legal 500 Latin America in Projects and Energy (2022-2023); and Legal 500 U.S. M&A/Corporate & Commercial: Private Equity Buyouts (2022-2023) and M&A/Corporate & Commercial: M&A Large Deals -$1 Billion-Plus (2023).

Notable experience includes representing:

• Data center and colocation infrastructure provider DataBank and its investors DigitalBridge and Swiss Life on a $2 billion equity raise by DataBank led by AustralianSuper
• DigitalBridge on the $3.3 billion tower transaction between its portfolio company Vertical Bridge and Verizon
• Data center and digital infrastructure provider DC Blox on its raise of incremental equity capital from existing and new investors, led by Post Road Group and Bain Capital Credit
• SDC Capital Partners and its portfolio company SummitIG on the formation of SierraIG, a joint venture with Neutral Networks, to build and operate dense fiber infrastructure in certain data center markets
• DigitalBridge and its portfolio company Scala Data Centers on a $525 million preferred equity investment led by Coatue and IMCO
• DigitalBridge and its portfolio company Netomnia on the merger of Netomnia and Brsk, creating the second largest alternative networks in the UK telecommunication industry
• DigitalBridge on the $9.2 billion equity investment in Vantage Data Centers led by DigitalBridge and Silver Lake
• DigitalBridge and its portfolio company Landmark on the sale of a 40% stake in Landmark to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority – ADIA
• NTT Global Data Centers Americas in connection with an investment by TC Global Investments Americas LLC in three large-scale hyperscale data centers owned by NTT GDCA in Chicago

Notable M&A experience prior to joining Simpson Thacher includes representing:

• DigitalBridge and its portfolio companies on several transactions, including acquisitions (Vertical Bridge, Celona, Netomnia, Next Generation Data, Wildstone, Etix Everywhere, Mundo, BTS Towers, Scala Data Centers, Algar data center, Highline, Oi’s tower portfolio, Phoenix Tower do Brasil, Torres Unidas, and others), divestments (Etix Everywhere Borealis, Ngoya Etix DC, Etix Everywhere Maroc, edge data centers in Belgium, France and Colombia, and others), syndications (Scala Data Centers, Highline, and others), joint ventures (GD Towers, Vantage Europe, and others), and venture capital investments (Celona and others)
• Aligned Data Centers and its sponsor Macquarie Asset Management in the acquisition of the data center service provider ODATA, and the structured investment by funds managed by SDC Capital Partners in ODATA in connection with the acquisition
• IFM Investors in the formation of a joint venture with DigitalBridge to acquire Switchin an $11 billion take-private transaction
• Swiss Life Asset Management and EDF Invest in the $1.2 billion acquisition of a 27% interest in DataBank, the largest edge data center infrastructure operator in the U.S.
• Data Foundry, a carrier-neutral colocation and data center provider, in its $420 million sale to Switch
• Goldman Sachs on an equity investment in the enterprise data center operator Elea Digital
• Owens-Illinois on the sale of Cristar Tabletop, a leading glass tableware company in the Andean region, to Nardir Figueiredo, a portfolio company of H.I.G. Capital
• BNP Paribas Cardif on a 10-year partnership with Magazine Luiza for the sale of certain extended warranty and other insurance products
• 4x4 Capital on the acquisition of a controlling interest in Yelloh! (f/k/a Schwan’s Home Service), a platform for the sale of frozen foods from home delivery trucks and other channels across all contiguous United States

Notable capital markets experience prior to joining the Firm includes representing:

• Scala Data Centers on the public offering and issuance of Brazilian Reais denominated local bonds (debentures) in the amount of R$1 billion (approximately US$200 million)
• Highline on the public offering and issuance of Brazilian Reais denominated local bonds (debentures) in the amount of R$1.6 billion (approximately US$310 million)
• BR Distribuidora, as issuer, and Petrobras, as selling shareholder, on the $9.6 billion offering and sale by Petrobras of common shares in BR Distribuidora
• Marfrig on a $3 billion primary and secondary offering of common shares, as well as several offerings of senior notes totaling over US$5 billion and several cash tender offers for the acquisition of outstanding notes totaling over $2 billion
• Abengoa Yield on the $327 million registered secondary public offering of 10,580,000 ordinary shares in the United States
• The underwriters on several offerings of senior notes by Suzano totaling approximately $4 billion

Gabriel received his LL.M. in 2014 from Columbia Law School where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He received a Post Graduate Certificate in Corporate Law in 2011 from Fundação Getúlio Vargas. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Law in 2008 from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. He served as a judicial clerk to Justice Maria Ines Moura of the Labor Court of Appeals in São Paulo, Brazil from 2005-2007. He is admitted to practice in New York and Brazil.