Британский финансист, владеющий командой «Williams», инвестирует в строительство дата-центра в Спартанберге

SPARTANBURG — It’s been 245 years since the British suffered an embarrassing defeat at the Battle of Cowpens. Are they now putting money back into Spartanburg? As the $2.8 billion, 457-megawatt NorthMark and Valara data center is built along South Pine Street, a review of public records shows a connection to a wealthy British financier who reportedly controls the Atlassian Williams Formula One racing team based in the village of Grove, England. Before it was called NorthMark Strategies, the company had a different name: Dorilton Capital Management. Both companies now operate separately and share the same space in New York City in a Tribeca office building. When a reporter visited the Tribeca office building where the companies are housed, a receptionist said the two companies were the same and that NorthMark was Dorilton’s new name. Dorilton’s financing was previously opaque. But litigation involving the company in New York state court shed some light on who funded it and the Formula One racing team that it owns. “There’s a bully billionaire in charge of this empire and he doesn’t play fair and he doesn’t honor contracts,” former Dorilton CEO Darren Fultz said in a legal deposition. That “billionaire” is Peter de Putron, a British financier and brother-in-law to conservative British politician Andrea Leadsom, who’s served in several ministerial positions under multiple prime ministers. According to testimony and court records from a New York state lawsuit, de Putron was the financial backer of Dorilton. Asked about the relationship between NorthMark and Dorilton, NorthMark spokeswoman Sarah Knox said in an email that “Dorilton and NorthMark Compute and Cloud are both companies within the NorthMark Strategies ecosystem.” NorthMark Compute and Cloud is also an official launch partner and corporate sponsor of Atlassian Williams Racing, Knox added. But Knox declined to elaborate on whether de Putron was involved in the data center. “NorthMark is privately funded and, as a matter of company policy, we do not publicly discuss the identities of our investors or the details of our private financing arrangements,” Knox said. Neither Fultz nor attorneys for de Putron could immediately be reached for comment. NorthMark and Dorilton The connection between Dorilton and NorthMark hadn’t been widely publicized, but there were breadcrumbs even before Knox acknowledged the ties to The Post and Courier. When law firm Jones Day handled the sale of one of NorthMark’s portfolio companies, Traditions Health, it linked the two companies in its announcement. “Jones Day represented NorthMark Strategies (previously Dorilton Capital Management) in the sale of its portfolio company, Traditions Health, a national provider of home health, palliative care, and hospice services, to a consortium of buyers led by Revelstoke Capital Partners,” the law firm said in December. A review of public LinkedIn accounts revealed several top officials working for NorthMark directly after working for Dorilton. One executive referred to the companies as the same. NorthMark’s general counsel, Andrew Udin, was listed as Dorilton’s general counsel in New York state court records. Local property records also list him as the general counsel of Valara, the NorthMark subsidiary that is building the Spartanburg data center. And in a deposition about de Putron’s involvement in Dorilton that was included in a New York state lawsuit, Fultz — the former Dorilton CEO — testified that he oversaw a handful of companies in Dorilton’s portfolio that were worth “a couple of billion dollars.” Among the companies he chaired? Traditions Health. De Putron’s influence Dorilton, Like NorthMark Strategies, has a website that offers little in the way of public-facing personnel or information about its financing. But in depositions from a New York state lawsuit over a fired marketing executive for the Dorilton-owned Atlassian Williams Formula 1 team, people close to the situation said de Putron was the financier behind Dorilton. While Dorilton argued in court records that de Putron was a passive investor, New York Judge Andrew Borrok said in a ruling that “the record establishes that he is not merely just a passive outside investor. He is much more than that.” For instance, when asked why de Putron attended Dorilton board meetings in New York, Dorilton Chairman Matthew Savage said in a deposition that “It is like any investor meeting. Like Jaime Diamon talks to his investors, and any company that is losing money and needs funding or is looking at a large project and needs investments; you go to the investor, make the case.” Fultz said in a court filing that he reported to Savage and that both he and Savage then reported to de Putron. “Mr. de Putron referred to himself as the ‘Group CEO’ of the entire group of companies which included not only Dorilton but also the entities that own and/are affiliated with the Williams Formula One Racing Team,” Fultz added. Williams Racing CEO Jost Capito also said during a deposition that as far as he knew, de Putron is “the financial guy behind Dorilton.” Citing the testimony, Borrok wrote that “Mr. de Putron (or “Our Dear Leader” aka “ODL” as he is internally referred to) makes ‘all significant decisions’ (including the decisions that are at the heart of the issues in this case) for Dorilton Capital Management LLC.” NorthMark’s connections to de Putron don’t end at Dorilton. De Putron also founded G-Research, a tech firm that uses machine learning to “bring scientific clarity to financial complexity — tackling some of the most challenging problems in quantitative finance,” according to its website. Its former chief operating officer, Jen Byrne, is now president of NorthMark Strategies. Knox said NorthMark and G-Research are two separate companies. “HPC is a highly specialized discipline with a relatively small global talent pool, and as such, we employ individuals who previously worked at a variety of technology and computing companies, including G-Research,” Knox said. Knox added that “NorthMark Strategies President Jen Byrne is a former employee of G-Research. NorthMark is fortunate that many employees of G-Research followed Jen to NorthMark when she assumed this new role.” What the data center does Construction on the data center is expected to continue into 2028. It’s the first data center that NorthMark is building from the ground up. “Outside of Spartanburg, NorthMark and related entities have hosted high-performance compute in third-party data centers for many years,” Knox said in an email. But it’s unclear what functions it will perform. Asked if it would be used for algorithmic-based stock trading or to improve Atlassian Williams’ racing performance, Knox declined to say. “NorthMark Compute and Cloud is establishing one of the most advanced HPC facilities in the world, leveraging cutting-edge technology to support complex computational tasks in machine learning, data analytics, and complex systems modeling,” Knox wrote. “We don't publicly discuss the specifics of the workloads that will run at the facility.” Meanwhile, the company announced at its most-recent virtual town hall that it’s launching its charitable giving arm this week with an initial $1 million in giving across Spartanburg County. After that, Knox said, the company will give between $250,000 and $500,000 in charitable giving each quarter. That’s separate from the tax revenue it will pay. The company is projecting that it will pay $10.5 million in tax revenue in 2026, $12.9 million in 2027, $13.9 million in 2028 and $15 million per year from 2029 through 2045. New York-based freelance reporter Max White contributed to this report.