Blackstone likely to acquire Carlyle stake in Bharti data centre arm

Bharti data centre valued at Rs 10,000 cr

American private equity major Carlyle is in talks with Blackstone Inc, the New York-based private equity firm, to sell its 25 per cent stake in Nxtra Data, the data centre subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, at a valuation of its stake at Rs 2,500 crore, said a banking source close to the development.

With this, the data centre business of Bharti Airtel will be valued at Rs 10,000 crore.
 

In 2020, Carlyle had acquired a stake in the data centre company for $235 million or approximately Rs 1,800 crore. A banking source said the talks between Blackstone and Carlyle were underway, and other suitors were likely to join.
 

The sale of Carlyle's stake in the data centre company would be its fourth exit this financial year after it sold part of its stake in YES Bank on Thursday via block deals for Rs 1,160 crore.
 

The private equity firm had earlier sold its entire 2.5 per cent stake in Delhivery for Rs 709 crore in June. In August, the private equity firm had sold its 2.17 per cent stake in Piramal Pharma, according to data sources from Growthpal, a merger and acquisition deal sourcing platform.
 

When contacted, Carlyle, Blackstone, and Bharti Airtel did not comment on the development.
 

Nxtra Data, which has scaled up its business since Carlyle first made an investment in 2020, plans to invest Rs 5,000 crore in the next few years to build new hyperscale data centres in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, National Capital Region, and Kolkata.  
 

The company currently has a network of 12 large and over 120 edge data centers in India, and serves over 400 clients.
 

Blackstone, on the other hand, has ambitious plans to invest in the data center business. In December, Digital Realty, the largest global provider of Cloud and carrier-neutral data centers, and Blackstone had announced a joint venture to develop four hyperscale data center campuses across three cities on two continents. These campuses located in Frankfurt, Paris, and Northern Virginia in the US would cost approximately $7 billion over the next few years.
 

In India, Blackstone is making aggressive acquisitions and recently joined the race to acquire Healthium Medtech, maker of medical products. If successful, the acquisition of Healthium would cost the acquirer around Rs 6,000 crore. The private firm was also in the race to acquire a sizable stake in Cipla but the negotiations slowed down over valuation.
 

Aadhar Housing Finance, a company owned by Blackstone, recently filed its prospectus with the market regulator to raise up to Rs 5,000 crore comprising fresh issue of equity shares by the company and a part stake sale by Blackstone.