May 4 (Reuters) - A newly minted Blackstone investment vehicle is aiming to raise slightly over $1.7 billion in an initial public offering in the United States to capitalize on booming demand in the data center sector.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust, which will acquire newly built data centers, is offering 87.5 million shares, including 725,987 bonus shares, in the IPO at $20 apiece, it said on Monday.
U.S. IPO activity picked up in April, with a surge in new filings signaling improving risk appetite and a growing pipeline that could sustain momentum in the coming months.
Artificial intelligence-linked companies have led the way, with data centers — which power AI workloads — emerging as particularly prized assets amid investor appetite for high-growth sectors.
"The U.S. IPO market is hitting on all cylinders right now. Big gains in recent deal flow related to AI and the energy revolution after strong earnings has been driving buoyed sentiment for the IPO asset class, hence more demand for deals," IPOX CEO Josef Schuster said.
Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset manager, has invested over $150 billion in data center assets since 2018.
The latest vehicle, a real estate investment trust, will pursue data centers worth $250 million to $1.5 billion leased to investment-grade tenants, and has flagged $25 billion in near-term deals in hubs such as Northern Virginia, Ohio, Phoenix, Maryland and Austin.
A Blackstone affiliate is set to buy shares in the offering, while IPO investors will receive bonus shares equivalent to 1% of their investment as a sweetener.
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, J.P. Morgan, RBC Capital Markets and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as joint lead book-running managers.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "BXDC".
(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil and Prakhar Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)
