Data center IPO hopefuls brave tougher market as investor scrutiny grows

By Echo Wang and Yantoultra Ngui

Sept 25 (Reuters) - Data center operator DayOne is pushing ahead with its plans to go public as soon as November, according to three people familiar with the matter, even as higher interest rates and setbacks elsewhere in the data center ecosystem threaten to narrow the window for companies to tap the IPO market. 

The Singapore-based company develops and operates data centers for cloud and AI customers. It plans to make its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission public in mid-October and list in November, the people said, speaking anonymously to discuss confidential matters. The plans, including the timing of the IPO, are subject to change, the people cautioned. DayOne declined to comment.

DayOne's IPO intentions follow two setbacks for data center operators this week: the delay of SB Energy's expected IPO and news of a dispute centering on Oracle and Blue Owl that could delay a data center project in New Mexico. 

The contrast highlights how the market for AI infrastructure is maturing after years of strong investor enthusiasm. Companies with diversified customers and greater visibility into demand can still attract interest, while projects that rely heavily on a single AI customer or require large amounts of capital upfront face greater scrutiny.

"The dividing line is whether demand is contracted and already energised, or only planned," said Ke Yan, head of research at Singapore-based investment research firm Shenton Research.

With power now the key constraint, investors favour operators with secured power supply, a large share of contracted capacity already operating or nearing completion, and long-dated take-or-pay contracts, he said.

Investor scrutiny is intensifying as a growing pipeline of companies head toward the public markets, with data center developers and operators including Switch, Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne exploring or preparing IPOs.

Switch has filed confidentially for an IPO, and is expected to launch its offering following DayOne, one of the people said.

Switch did not respond to a request for comments.

A MORE DIVERSIFIED OFFERING

DayOne's geographic diversification and the fact it has operational data centers, not just ones under development, have helped distinguish it from some rivals in the eyes of investors, one of the people said. 

The company, backed by investors like Coatue and Hillhouse, raised $4.5 billion in a Series C funding round that closed in June. It could seek to raise as much as $5 billion in the IPO at a valuation of about $20 billion, Reuters has reported.

It has secured about 2.1 gigawatts of capacity bookings and operates across Asia-Pacific and Europe, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Finland and Spain, according to its website.     

Meanwhile, SoftBank-backed SB Energy has postponed plans to formally market its IPO this week as it works to address additional questions from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. There are also investor concerns over the valuation it is seeking and its reliance on OpenAI as a major customer, one of the three people familiar with the matter and another person said. Discussions around the IPO have centered on a valuation of about $60 billion, one of the people added.

SB Energy declined to comment. 

There have been various dealings between SoftBank, SB Energy, its main data center customer OpenAI and OpenAI's chip supplier Nvidia in recent months.

Nvidia has agreed to provide a guarantee of up to $105 billion to help OpenAI lease the Ohio data center being developed by SB Energy, while also investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy.

OpenAI backer SoftBank is taking investor orders for a $10 billion dollar-denominated debt deal to help fund its OpenAI investments. The company previously took a loan backed by the OpenAI stake. 

AI SPENDING FACES CLOSER SCRUTINY

The cost of financing the AI buildout is coming under greater pressure. AI-related capital spending by the six biggest US technology companies is projected to reach around $1 trillion in 2027, according to Moody’s. Higher interest rates make it more expensive to finance facilities whose returns may take years to materialize, while investors are demanding greater visibility into the customers and cash flows that will support those investments.

For developers relying on debt, contracted revenue from creditworthy customers is crucial to servicing that debt as they fund costly AI-ready facilities, including high-density racks and liquid-cooling systems, said Neil Bear-Hetherington, director of data centre capital markets, Asia Pacific, at CBRE.

For data center developers, that makes the identity and financial strength of their customers increasingly important to investors evaluating projects that can require billions of dollars of upfront investment. For companies preparing to go public, a less forgiving IPO market and greater scrutiny of AI infrastructure create an incentive to move quickly while investor demand is available.

"The earlier the better. Uncertainty is what hurts data-center models. Investors in data centers are looking for yield and growth together, and uncertainty weighs on both, since it raises the cost of the debt that supports the yield and delays the grid and financing that growth depends on," said Yan of Shenton Research.

(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York AND Yantoultra Ngui in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Milana Vinn in New York and Kane Wu in Hong Kong; Editing by Colin Barr and Nia Williams)