Blue Owl is set to acquire IPI Partners for approximately $1 billion.
As reported by Reuters, the asset manager will be purchasing IPI from its owners and funding the deal with 80 percent of equity and 20 percent in cash.
Reports that Blue Owl was looking to acquire IPI emerged earlier this month.
IPI is a joint venture between investment manager Iconiq Capital and private equity firm Iron Point Partners.
The deal is Blue Owl's foray into digital infrastructure, and is set to bring $10.5 billion to its assets under management.
"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's co-CEOs Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz.
Update - Blue Owl has released a press release regarding the acquisition. The company notes that IPI's managing partner, Matt A'Hearn, will become head of Blue Owl's digital infrastructure strategy and report to the asset manager's co-president Marc Zahr.
In addition, an "affiliate of Iconiq" will enter into an agreement with Blue Owl to provide business services such as investment analysis and investor relations.
The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 of 2024 or Q1 of 2025, and is subject to conditions including third-party consents. Blue Owl expects the acquisition will be neutral to its 2025 earnings, and "modestly accretive" in 2026.
Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Societe Generale, and TD Securities (USA) LLC are acting as co-financial advisors to Blue Owl in connection with the acquisition. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is acting as legal advisor to Blue Owl.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is acting as legal advisor to IPI. Berkshire Global Advisors L.P. is serving as financial advisor to Iron Point.
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IPI has a portfolio of 82 data centers with 2.2GW of capacity globally. The investment firm owns Stack Infrastructure, having formed the company in 2019 through the merging of several T5 data centers and three Infomart facilities. It also launched US regional Edge firm Radius DC in 2022.
Blue Owl has approximately $192 billion in assets under management. The company recently formed a $5 billion joint venture with Chirisa and PowerHouse to develop data centers across the US – mostly for AI cloud firm CoreWeave.
The IPI acquisition is Blue Owl's fourth this year, having previously acquired Kuvare Asset Management, Prima Capital Advisors, and Atalaya Capital Management.
