NEW YORK: The growing demand for capital to fund artificial intelligence (AI) investment is filtering into a little-watched corner of the asset-backed securities (ABS) market: bonds secured by equipment loans and leases.
Stonebriar Commercial Finance is selling around US$869mil of asset-backed securities, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The offering would be one of the first broadly syndicated equipment financing ABS-backed in part by AI chip loans, known as GPU loans, the people said, asking not to be identified.
Those loans account for about 15% of the collateral for the transaction, they added.
Separately, Wingspire Equipment Finance late last month raised more than US$407mil through an equipment loan and lease ABS, according to a company statement.
In that case, GPU loans made up about 20% of the collateral for the deal, one of the people said.
A representative for Stonebriar declined to comment, while Wingspire didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Equipment ABS have not typically had GPU financing as collateral in the past, though there have been a few recently with relatively little exposure, said Michael Nowakowski, head of structured products at Conning & Co.
“As long as loans are amortising with lower loan-to-values and the percentage doesn’t start to creep up over time, we’re not as concerned as 100% GPU finance deals because collateral pools are often very diverse,” he said.
The two deals come as financing for the chips and servers that power AI is growing more common.
While much of the borrowing for the AI buildout until now has gone towards data centre construction, increasingly large debt packages are now being arranged to finance the chips that go inside them.
Broadcom Inc’s Wall Street lenders are working on more than US$60bil of financing that could help Anthropic PBC and other companies access AI chips.
A group of banks is also providing a US$22bil chip loan to Blackstone Inc and Alphabet Inc’s new cloud venture Crux AI, with the debt backed by the value of the chips and customer contracts.
CoreWeave Inc earlier this year offered a US$3.1bil broadly syndicated loan backed by GPUs and customer contracts after completing four previous GPU financing deals privately.
In the securitisation market, Stonebriar’s bonds are expected to be marketed this week and to settle on Oct 14.
The securities are being offered under Rule 144A, which means the issuer can sell securities only to qualified institutional investors. They are expected to be rated AAA to BBB-, while the shortest lives of the securities are expected to carry the highest short-term credit ratings.
In addition to computer and information technology infrastructure, the largest collateral category, the pool also includes oil and gas equipment, manufacturing equipment, corporate aircraft and marine assets, according to a report from KBRA.
Wingspire’s equipment ABS, also offered to institutional investors under Rule 144a, included securities rated as high as AAA. — Bloomberg
