Buyers are reportedly circling to acquire a stake in APAC operator Bridge Data Centres.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that investment firm Sixth Street Partners, South Korean telecom giant SK Telecom, Singapore state investor GIC, and Canadian pension fund La Caisse are all interested in acquiring at least a partial stake in Bridge DC from current owner Bain Capital.

Bain could sell as much as 50 percent in Bridge, potentially valuing the firm at around $4 billion, according to the publication. No final decisions have been made.

None of the potential buyers provided comment to Bloomberg. Bridge told DCD: “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on unverified information or market rumours.”

Singapore-based Bridge lists five data centers in operation or in planning in Malaysia, two in Thailand, and one in India. The company claims to be targeting 3GW of capacity by 2030.

Reports that Bain was actively looking to sell at least a partial stake in Bridge DC surfaced in April, building on rumours going back to December.

Bridge told DCD in April that the claims were "speculative and unsubstantiated."

Founded in 2017, Bridge was merged with Bain's Chinese data center business, ChinData, in 2019. The two firms were split again after ChinData was sold to a Chinese-led consortium in September last year.

Bain also owns EMEA-focused data center firm Hscale and US-focused operator DC Blox.

La Caisse, formerly CDPQ and officially Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has assets totaling C$517bn (US$378bn). Founded by the Quebec government, the firm is the second-largest pension fund in Canada. It has provided funding and financing to the likes of Cologix, Yondr, NextDC, Vantage, and others.

Sixth Street was established in 2009 as a strategic partnership with TPG. The firm has $80 billion in assets under management and committed capital and has investments across software, life sciences, sports, finance, digital infrastructure, real estate, energy, and agriculture. It previously invested in AirTrunk prior to its 2020 acquisition by Macquarie and is a minority investor in EdgeConneX. It also owns a stake in real estate firm ESR, which has a data center development business.

Established by the Government of Singapore in 1981, GIC is an investor in Vantage's EMEA data center platform, as well as a number of Equinix’s xScale hyperscale data centers globally. GIC has also invested in US firm EdgeCore and owns a stake in Czech digital infrastructure firm CETIN Group. It recently invested in a Brazilian data center joint venture with local investment firm, Alianza Investimentos Imobiliários.

In 2019, the sovereign wealth fund signed a deal with GDS to develop multiple hyperscale build-to-suit data centers in China. That year also saw the company partner with Polymer Connected (now SpaceDC) for a campus in Jakarta, Indonesia. In 2022, GIC-backed European logistics real estate firm P3 Logistic Parks announced plans for a large data center campus on the site of a former army barracks in Hanu, to the east of Frankfurt. The site was later sold to Data4.

SK Telecom belongs to SK Group, one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates. The group develops and operates numerous data centers around South Korea, and recently set up a dedicated data center business.