Street Talk

Debt deal makers prepare to lend big for winner of $20b-plus AirTrunk

Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Aug 27, 2024 – 10.50am

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It’s not just IFM Investors and Blackstone’s deal makers who had a long weekend before Tuesday morning’s deadline for binding offers for AirTrunk. Spare a thought for debt teams at the more than 40 banks that lend to the $20 billion-plus data centre giant.

Street Talk understands both Blackstone and the IFM-led consortiums have agreed to keep AirTrunk’s $8.5 billion OpCo level debt intact to finance their bids. This is the asset-level debt in AirTrunk’s capital structure and is held at leverage of about nine-times earnings.

Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.

Kanika Sood is a journalist based in Sydney who writes for the Street Talk column.

Emma Rapaport is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review.