Blue Owl Capital is acquiring digital infrastructure fund manager IPI Partners for $1bn (€910m) from Iconiq Capital and Iron Point.
The acquisition price is being settled with 80% Blue Owl equity and around 20% cash, Blue Owl said, adding that it is also partnering with an affiliate of Iconiq to help accelerate the future growth of IPI, including investment analysis and investor relations.
IPI, founded in 2016 as a joint venture between Iconiq and Iron Point, has $10.5bn in assets under management. The IPI platform has a portfolio of 82 data centres comprising over 2.2GWs of leased capacity across the US, EMEA and APAC.
Blue Owl is a $192bn asset manager with three investment platforms: credit, GP strategic capital, and real estate.
Following the completion of the acquisition, the IPI business will become part of Blue Owl’s real estate platform, which will continue to be led by Blue Owl co-president Marc Zahr. IPI’s managing partner, Matt A’Hearn, will assume the role of head of Blue Owl’s digital infrastructure strategy.
Blue Owl’s Co-CEOs Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz said: “The acquisition of IPI with its deep sector expertise complements our existing net-lease strategy while providing an ideal opportunity to expand Blue Owl’s digital infrastructure strategy.
“There is a massive market opportunity to finance data centres, matched by an increasing investor appetite for additional strategies investing behind cloud and AI-driven secular tailwinds.”
Divesh Makan, a founding partner at Iconiq, said, “It has been a privilege to help build IPI over the past eight years and to secure trust with many of the largest data center customers in the world.
“During this time, IPI has grown into one of the largest private developers and investors of data centers globally by solving problems for the leading global technology companies.”
Tom Lynch, a managing partner at Iron Point, said: “We are proud to have been partners with Iconiq in the formation and growth of IPI, and we are confident that the addition of Blue Owl will enable IPI to achieve even greater scale to meet the needs of the world’s largest technology companies.”
Matt A’Hearn, managing partner of IPI, said, “On behalf of the IPI team, we are incredibly excited to join Blue Owl and serve as the foundation for expanding the firm’s digital infrastructure strategy, further complementing their market-leading net lease strategy.
“We are also grateful to our partners at Iconiq and Iron Point, who were instrumental in helping us become one of the most scaled digital infrastructure managers.”
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