Blackstone Digital Infrastructure IPO: Data center REIT debuts on NYSE

Early trading in shares of Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust, a REIT specializing in acquiring data centers and leasing them to large corporations, has started on Freedom’s trading platform. Later on Thursday, the stock will debut during the main session on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BXDC.US.

Blackstone Digital, a REIT launched by Blackstone Inc., raised $1.75 billion in its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. The company sold 87.5 million shares at $20 per share and granted underwriters an option to purchase additional stock. If exercised in full, the offering size will reach $2 billion, while the number of outstanding shares will total 100.6 million, according to the press release.

The joint lead book-running managers for the listing were Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, JPMorgan, RBC Capital Markets, and Wells Fargo Securities. Joint book-running managers included BNP PARIBAS, SMBC Nikko, Societe Generale, BBVA, Credit Agricole CIB, MUFG, Santander, and TD Securities. Blackstone Capital Markets acted as comanager for the offering.

The REIT plans to use proceeds from the deal to acquire data centers, as well as for general corporate purposes, according to the company’s IPO prospectus filed with U.S. regulators. The filing also states that Blackstone Treasury Holdings III, an affiliate of Blackstone, expressed interest in purchasing up to $200 million worth of stock.

Investors participating in the offering will also receive an additional 1% of their purchase amount in bonus shares, rounded down to the nearest whole share, according to the prospectus.

Founded in November, Blackstone Digital will focus on investing in newly constructed data centers leased to large corporations, the company stated in its IPO prospectus.

“We believe technological advances are the defining megatrend of this century. The convergence of AI, cloud computing, and broader economic digitalization is driving unprecedented demand for data centers globally,” the company wrote. It added that “over the next decade, trillions of dollars are expected to be invested in digital infrastructure, especially data centers.”

The data centers will be managed by Blackstone Real Estate, another Blackstone affiliate, which managed $315 billion in real estate assets as of March 31.

For now, Blackstone Digital has not begun operations, does not formally qualify as a REIT, and does not yet own any real estate assets, according to the IPO documents. Those steps are expected to follow after the offering is completed, the filing states.

During earnings calls this reporting season, large private investment firms have repeatedly highlighted how important AI infrastructure has become to their strategies, according to Business Insider.

The site cited comments from Blackstone President Jon Gray, who noted that in the first quarter, “8 of the 10 best performing investments we had were in this space.” “They were battery charging companies, they were energy companies, LLMs, and the data center space, obviously, has become very large,” Gray said.

Marc Lipschultz, co-CEO of Blackstone peer Blue Owl Capital, also pointed to “unprecedented demand for data center capacity.”

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Freedom clients will be able to trade Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust shares before the start of the main U.S. session. Premarket trading will open 2-3 hours early, at 15:30-16:30 Astana time. Investors can participate by selecting the symbol BXDC.US on the Freedom platform.