Princeton Digital Group in Talks for $1B Investment From Stonepeak

Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group is in talks to receive at least $1 billion in investment from private equity firm Stonepeak, market sources confirmed to Mingtiandi on Wednesday, as data centre outfits continue to aggressively raise funds with a view to scaling up their platforms.

The investment in PDG, an Asia Pacific player backed by private equity major Warburg Pincus, would come in the form of a debt-related deal with Stonepeak, a person with knowledge of the talks told Mingtiandi. Manhattan-based Stonepeak, an infrastructure specialist with $73 billion in assets under management, also has its own Singapore-based data centre portfolio company, Digital Edge.

The fresh funds would come on top of $1.2 billion in new financing announced in May by PDG, a 1-gigawatt-plus platform led by co-founder, chairman and CEO Rangu Salgame.

Warburg Pincus had no comment on the potential financing when contacted by Mingtiandi, and PDG didn’t respond to inquiries.

Potential Bidders

The negotiations were first revealed by Bloomberg on Tuesday, following the news agency’s February report that Stonepeak was one of several firms studying a bid for PDG in a transaction potentially valuing the company at about $4 billion. Others said to have been considering bids included BlackRock-backed Global Infrastructure Partners and New Zealand’s Morrison.

PDG’s May announcement said the company had secured $800 million in project financing for the development and expansion of AI-ready data centre campuses in Mumbai, Langfang and Tokyo, as well as $400 million in loans from a consortium including Barclays, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank.

“This financing milestone reflects the confidence capital providers have in PDG’s vision and execution capabilities,” Salgame said then.

Founded in 2012 with Manhattan-based Warburg Pincus, PDG has over 20 data centre assets across Singapore, Japan, India, Indonesia, China and Malaysia. Earlier this year the company opened its first data centre campus in Japan, a $1 billion project in Greater Tokyo with 96 megawatts of IT capacity.

PDG’s previous funding rounds included a $505 million equity raise led by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company in 2022 and $230 million in debt refinancing obtained from China Merchants Bank in 2021.

Full-Tilt Fundraising

Stonepeak’s Digital Edge kicked off a busy year of data centre fundraising in January when the company disclosed more than $1.6 billion in new equity and debt financing from institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds.

Final closings this year include Ares Management’s $2.4 billion fund targeting Japan data centres and PGIM Real Estate’s $2 billion vehicle focused on digital infrastructure globally. In addition, Temasek-backed Keppel reached a $580 million first closing of its third APAC data centre fund and China-focused GLP clinched $360 million in commitments for its first digital infrastructure strategy.

Australia’s Goodman Group last week unveiled a $2.7 billion private investment vehicle targeting the Hong Kong data centre market, with backing from Dutch pension fund managers PGGM and APG, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, CBRE Investment Management and an unspecified Middle Eastern investor.