Exclusive / Blackstone-backed data center operator tests AI debt fears - Semafor
Wall Street is finding out just how expensive things can get in a matter of months.
For a look at how much investorsβ jitters are reshaping AI-related debt financing, look to QTS, an investment-grade Blackstone-backed data center operator, that just six months ago was weighing a deal to borrow $800 million at a rate of 1.7 percentage points over Treasurys.
That deal never went through. And now, that same debt is being shopped to investors at 2.2 to 2.50 points above comparable Treasury yields for a nearly identical offering, according to people familiar with the matter. Both offerings involve the same company, same blue-chip Wall Street backing, and the same collateral β just for a lot more money. Blackstone declined to comment.Β
As debt jitters spread and borrowing gets more expensive, itβs a lesson in just how much sentiment has shifted in such a short amount of time.
On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Blackstone told investors it no longer expected Anthropic to get an investment-grade credit rating immediately after its IPO, a reversal of previous guidance about the frontier lab, which is raising billions of dollars to finance its AI buildout. And investment-grade SpaceXβs $40 billion debt launch saw its pricing widen out β reaching an expected 8.75% yield for the riskier portion of its recent debt deal, up from where pricing was discussed just a week earlier, Semafor reported.
