NEW YORK: A group of banks including Natixis SA, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and Societe Generale SA have started selling US$3bil of loans for a data centre in Ohio backed by Meta Platforms Inc, the latest deal supporting the buildout of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
The general syndication of the loans for the data centre building as well as related power assets is structured in a single transaction, according to sources.
Royal Bank of Canada and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp are also arrangers in the transaction, said the sources.
The one-gigawatt New Albany, Ohio cluster, known as Prometheus, is one of several massive data centres Meta is investing in to power its AI efforts.
It’s expected to come online this year, according to chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg, who has pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars through the end of the decade on AI and infrastructure needed to support it.
The banks are aiming to wrap up the marketing process on April 16 after kicking off discussions last month, the sources said.
The transaction consists of two construction loans: a US$2.1bil tranche and a US$900mil tranche, they said.
They will be offered as four-year loans with a one-year extension each.
Pricing is indicated at 2.5 percentage points over the benchmark for both loans, which for the most part will be sold on a pro-rata basis.
Upfront fees are based on a grid tied to commitment sizes, the sources said.
Investors can buy various tiers of debt ranging from less than US$75mil to as much as US$125mil, which pay fees from 0.375% to 1.25%, they added.
The debt is being marketed to investors including banks, institutional investors, and private credit lenders.
The Financial Times was first to report some of the details of the transaction.
EdgeConneX Inc, a data centre operator acquired by private equity firm EQT Infrastructure, will run the Ohio project.
Representatives for Meta, MUFG, SMBC, RBC and EQT Partners, parent of EQT Infrastructure, declined to comment.
Natixis, SocGen and EdgeConneX didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last year, Meta sold US$30bil of investment-grade bonds in a record-shattering transaction.
It also sealed a US$29bil private capital deal with Pacific Investment Management Co and Blue Owl Capital Inc to help finance its Hyperion data centre site in Richland Parish, Louisiana. — Bloomberg
