数据中心交易聚焦电力与基础设施瓶颈

Thank you all so much for joining us. Maria, let me start with you. When you're talking about talking to clients about opportunities in data centers, where are they? What are you most frequently pitching and hearing back of where people want to be? Yeah, there's many conversations and many opportunities. And I think my conversations with clients are primarily around the supply chain and infrastructure constraints. So obviously power is the largest constraint that everyone is talking about.

In addition to that, I think what people don't talk about as much as some of the, um, the other hardware, like high voltage transformers, backup generators, all of which are highly constrained as well. So just speaks to the complexity of this ecosystem. Melissa, how about you? What have you seen in your conversations as the sector within data centers, this most ripe for opportunity? You know, it's incredible. And, you know, almost 15 years of practicing, I've never seen such a dynamic industry.

And it's changed so much. Um, you know, flash back 2022 tape private of Cyrus one that was 15 billion. Now we're looking at $40 billion deal for aligned. Within that time the valuations change because of the size and scale. It also created this opportunity to invest in so many different parts of the value chain, whether that's actually, you know, development project to stabilize asset going to the GPUs, the fibers, all of the pieces you can invest in now like you never have before.

So I think everybody is kind of looking for the same pockets of capital. So it's what can we do different. Where can we protect risk. Where can we get the best returns? Because at the end of the day, you're still sourcing from the same pools of capital, and the demand for capital is just at a level we've never seen. Well, um, you are one of those pools of capital is laying out money for this. Um, where do you find that kind of ticks off the boxes that Melissa was just talking about?

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. So at Stone peak, we're an infrastructure manager that's focused across the infrastructure spectrum, broadly defined, spending a lot of time in digital. Obviously a lot of time in data centers. We stood up our own hyperscale data center platform last year. And so where we're seeing a lot of opportunity and really where we're focused are on opportunities that are really we're looking at through more of an infrastructure investment lens.

So making sure that the power is there, that we have the grid interconnection activity, that we have the strong contracted demand and highly creditworthy counterparties. And so I think where we're spending time in making sure that where we're directing the opportunities is places that do have the power. Um, which I think is becoming one of the biggest constraints, but also the biggest area of value add if you can sort of salt.

I was going to say, because I mean, clearly that constraint is a problem that everybody's thinking about. But but how do valuations look. Because presumably that opportunity set is small because it is a bottleneck. I think that's exactly right. I mean I think you're you're seeing you know, people ask if sort of are valuations fair in this market. Are there you know overblown. And I think it's a little bit of a mix. And it really depends on having all those components in place.

And so where you do have assets in companies and platforms that are focused on those having the power, having the interconnection, it's not as much of a speculative build. I think premiums in those spaces could be warranted. I think where you're seeing the differentiation is more for the spec builds or for, you know, so there's definitely a differentiation between capacity on paper and real deliverable capacity. How much of a concern is the spec build?

Marry this idea that you could have stranded assets of people who are saying, oh, I have this, you know, uh, project site I'm building, but I don't yet have power and I don't yet have a lease signed. It's a real concern, I think, particularly the sites that don't have power and don't have, um, equipment buys for those critical pieces of constrained equipment. And look, it's a market where you're going to have winners and losers despite the growth.

And so those are definitely some that are considered riskier. Yeah. I think it's, um, spec builds are hard. And as we look at going to underwrite and helping our clients look at investments, the risk profile is the number one thing because it's going to drive. Can you get financing. Are you having to look, uh, an equity build or you doing a preferred investment. What type of ultimate financing solution? I think you have to look.

Our clients are looking at the very beginning of the lifecycle to say, you know what happens from pre dev all the way to kind of what is the quality of the contract. Because right now even projects that are under contract, if you've got five hyperscale contracts with the same person and one does not look like the other, financing is not going to be the same. And that's a different risk return profile for an underwrite.

So I think as we look kind of what people are focused on, the I'm still not seeing a ton of people involved in the spec because there's just too much focus on right now, diligence up front on the power. And can you actually get there? What is the timeline? Is it going to be available and what is the bridge solution? I think people are getting incredibly creative as it relates to the power alternative. So considering alternatives like, you know, micro nuclear fuel cells, turbo cells, um, and you're looking at alternatives to bridge that gap for a grid connect eventually.

I'm assuming some of the creativeness is not just in the power, but is in the financing. And I feel like that's where you probably go in. I mean, come in. How much of this ecosystem is not getting financing from traditional banks, but is looking to players like Stone peak? Sure. I mean, I think it is interesting because there has been this evolution, as you know, from the beginning of the data center development, which has gone from a more real estate type lens to now being viewed really as an infrastructure asset where you need all of these other components in place.

And I think one interesting trend is just because there has been this over build, you're seeing the traditional markets like the bank markets, we're hearing that there's an oversaturation. They're sort of at capacity for certain hyperscalers and certain, um, developers. And so I think borrowers are having to get a little bit more creative about what markets they're accessing. And I think, you know, for well structured projects, the bank markets still very much open.

There's a lot of appetite. Um, I think we're starting to see borrowers pivot to more accessing the public markets. I think there's a really strong depth of investors in the public markets, and we're seeing the pivot there just to get breadth of capital in different pool of investors. And then I think you're also depending on the earlier life stages of the projects, like really seeing private credit come into play as well.

So I think for well structured projects there's really no shortage of capital, but it is really being able to show that there's appropriate risk allocation and mitigation of, you know, all of the components that we've been discussing. I think the market's gotten creative, though, from that perspective. 12 months ago, you didn't talk about the bond market as it relates to a solution for data center construction, much less long term financing.

And within the last probably six months, there's been several, including like the large related transaction that was, I think, a $14 billion bond offering. And so you're able to we're accessing pockets of capital we've never seen. I am just struck, though, like one of the common threads that you were talking about is you can do that assuming that you are one of the