ING is offering a $500 million portfolio of data center loans for sale, including a $25 million loan linked to a New Mexico facility supporting the Stargate AI infrastructure venture backed by OpenAI and others.
- Loans linked to key AI and data center ventures included
- Bids requested for loans of at least $10 million
- Tech sector selloff hits data center stocks hard
What happened
Dutch bank ING has put a portfolio of approximately $500 million in data center loans up for sale at once. The package includes a $25 million loan tied to a large data center in New Mexico that is part of the Stargate AI infrastructure project, which is supported by prominent investors including OpenAI, SoftBank Group, and Oracle.
ING is inviting bids in a competitive process, targeting loans with minimum sizes of at least $10 million. Other loans in the portfolio are linked to well-known data center operators such as Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne. Bids for these loans are due by November 19.
Why it matters
This sale comes amid a substantial selloff in technology-related stocks, especially impacting chipmakers and neocloud companies. The selloff was partly driven by investor worries about tougher regulations following the US midterm election results, which saw the Democratic party achieve significant victories.
The tech sector downturn erased trillions in market value from S&P 500 companies, and data center operators like Applied Digital, Cipher Digital, and IREN saw their shares fall by over 14%. ING’s decision to sell this loan portfolio reflects a cautious stance amid growing regulatory and market uncertainties in the tech infrastructure space.
What to watch next
Attention will be on the bids submitted for the loan portfolio, as the process will indicate investor appetite for financing data center assets in a challenging market environment. The outcome could offer insights into the resilience of infrastructure lending linked to AI and cloud ventures.
Additionally, further regulatory developments in the US technology sector and the evolving market sentiment toward tech infrastructure will be critical to watch, as they may influence the value and risk profile of data center loans and investments going forward.