Blue Owl to acquire data centre fund for $1bn
Blue Owl Capital has agreed to the $1bn (£765m) acquisition of digital infrastructure fund manager IPI Partners from ICONIQ Capital and Iron Point Partners.
The purchase price will be comprised of approximately 80 per cent Blue Owl equity and approximately 20 per cent cash.
The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024 or first quarter of 2025, subject to certain closing conditions including third party consents, and is expected to be neutral to Blue Owl’s earnings in 2025 and modestly accretive in 2026.
Blue Owl will partner with an affiliate of ICONIQ to help accelerate the future growth of the business.
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IPI has approximately $10.5bn in assets under management as of June 30, 2024 and was founded in 2016 as a joint venture between ICONIQ and Iron Point to service the needs of large, high-quality hyperscale and enterprise data centre users.
The acquisition will boost Blue Owl’s digital infrastructure strategy as part of the firm’s real estate platform, which will continue to be led by Blue Owl co-president Marc Zahr.
IPI’s managing partner Matt A’Hearn will become head of Blue Owl’s digital infrastructure strategy reporting to Zahr.
“There is a massive market opportunity to finance data centers, matched by an increasing investor appetite for additional strategies investing behind cloud and AI-driven secular tailwinds,” said Blue Owl co-chief executives Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz.
“IPI’s tenured investment team, preeminent LP-base and global scale in the digital infrastructure economy will enhance our suite of capital solutions and investment offerings, further strengthening our position as a partner of choice. Investors can benefit greatly from the combination of Blue Owl’s triple net lease knowledge and IPI’s depth in the data centres market.”
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IPI managing partner Matt A’Hearn added: “On behalf of the IPI team, we are incredibly excited to join Blue Owl and serve as the foundation for expanding the firm’s digital infrastructure strategy, further complementing their market-leading net lease strategy. We are also grateful to our partners at ICONIQ and Iron Point, who were instrumental in helping us become one of the most scaled digital infrastructure managers. We believe there’s a tremendous amount that IPI can accomplish within the Blue Owl ecosystem alongside our partners at ICONIQ, and look to extend our market leading position.”
Deutsche Bank Securities, J.P. Morgan Securities, Morgan Stanley & Co, Societe Generale, and TD Securities are acting as co-financial advisors to Blue Owl in connection with the acquisition. Kirkland & Ellis is acting as legal advisor to Blue Owl.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is acting as legal advisor to IPI. Berkshire Global Advisors is serving as financial advisor to Iron Point.
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