Data Centers
Sized to power, preleasing, and tenant credit.
Debt and equity advisory across the data center life cycle: powered land, powered shell, turnkey colocation, and hyperscale build-to-suit. We advise on construction financing sized to loan-to-cost, where leverage turns on preleasing and tenant credit, and on stabilized refinancings through banks, debt funds, insurance companies, and the securitization market. Underwriting runs on megawatts of critical IT load, interconnection status, and lease structure, not square feet. On development deals we work through the questions lenders actually ask: utility will-serve status, substation and energization timeline, equipment procurement, and the gap between shell delivery and full fit-out.
Market Commentary
Where the capital sits.
United States
Power, not land, is the binding constraint. CBRE put North America primary-market vacancy at 1.6% and reported 74.3% of capacity under construction already preleased, against a 40 to 50 percent historical norm, and expects preleasing to hold in the mid-70s through 2026 (CBRE, North America Data Center Trends, H2 2025). Interconnection sets the schedule: where new transmission or generation is required, timelines run 24 to 48 months and beyond, which is why an executed utility will-serve letter or a signed interconnection agreement now sits ahead of zoning in a lender diligence file (CBRE, 2026 US Real Estate Market Outlook). Capital has followed the demand. US data center financings totaled roughly $30 billion in 2024 and were tracking toward about $60 billion in 2025 (Norton Rose Fulbright, Data Center Financing Structures, June 2025), and approximately $25 billion of data center securitization priced during 2025, split close to evenly between ABS and CMBS (RBC Capital Markets, December 2025). The practical shape of a development deal follows from that: a construction facility or mini-perm through completion and a few operating years, then a securitized or private placement takeout once the leases are in place and the asset has history.
United Kingdom
Our UK coverage here is debt advisory. The sterling lending market is narrower than the US market and splits three ways: clearing banks and their European counterparts on larger campuses with contracted occupiers, challenger and specialist banks in the smaller development bracket, and infrastructure credit funds where the structure looks more like project finance than like a mortgage. The gating items are the ones that decide a US deal and then some. A grid connection offer with a credible energization date, planning consent, and an occupier contract a credit committee can underwrite all have to be in place before leverage becomes a conversation. We advise on the debt: sizing, structure, and running the lender process.
Scope
Where the boundary sits.
A data center can be financed two ways, and knowing which one a deal is in decides who to call. Real estate credit sizes to the building, the lease, and the value of the asset: loan-to-cost, loan-to-value, and coverage on contracted rent. Project finance credit sizes to a contract stack held inside a bankruptcy-remote project company, running on cash flow available for debt service, sculpted amortization, funded reserve accounts, and direct agreements with the offtaker and the contractor. We cover the real estate credit pools and the banks and private credit lenders who cross into this asset class from them. Where a mandate genuinely belongs with a project finance bank or an infrastructure credit fund, we say so at the outset and build the process around that pool rather than running it as though the deal were a mortgage.
Capital Sources
Active lenders for data centers.
The lenders who are actually transacting today, by capital type and typical profile.
Project finance banks
The core arranger group for construction and term facilities on larger campuses. European and Japanese institutions led the 2025 global project finance arranger tables (Infralogic, 2025 project finance rankings), and they arrange and syndicate rather than hold.
Private credit and infrastructure credit funds
Increasingly the marginal lender on the largest projects, lending at the project company rather than against the building, and able to size around a development timetable that a bank credit committee will not.
Money-center and regional banks
Construction and mini-perm capital on powered shell and smaller colocation, typically with recourse that burns off at stabilization and a cash management trigger.
Insurance companies and private placement buyers
Long-dated investment-grade paper against contracted leases to strong corporate tenants, bought as a private placement rather than originated as a mortgage.
Securitization: ABS and SASB CMBS
The takeout. ABS deals are master-trust style and multi-asset, interest-only to an anticipated repayment date; single-asset single-borrower CMBS covers one stabilized campus over five to ten years.
Execution
What we place.
Sector-specific execution across the full capital stack, structured around the business plan rather than a template.
Construction and mini-perm facilities sized to loan-to-cost, with the interest reserve carried through to stabilization
Powered land and powered shell financings underwritten on delivered megawatts of critical IT load
Stabilized refinancings and securitized takeouts through ABS and single-asset single-borrower CMBS
Letter of credit facilities for interconnection deposits and long-lead equipment procurement
Preferred equity and mezzanine placed behind a senior construction facility
Lease and tenant credit analysis across hyperscale build-to-suit and multi-tenant colocation
Execution
How we finance data centers.
Construction and mini-perm facilities sized to loan-to-cost, with the interest reserve carried through to stabilization
Powered land and powered shell financings underwritten on delivered megawatts of critical IT load
Stabilized refinancings and securitized takeouts through ABS and single-asset single-borrower CMBS
Letter of credit facilities for interconnection deposits and long-lead equipment procurement
Preferred equity and mezzanine placed behind a senior construction facility
Lease and tenant credit analysis across hyperscale build-to-suit and multi-tenant colocation
Diligence
What a lender asks for first.
The documents that decide whether a financing is quotable. Missing any of them changes the process rather than the price.
- Utility will-serve letter or interconnection agreement
- Queue position, contracted capacity, substation scope, and the energization date the utility will actually commit to in writing.
- Site control, entitlements, and water
- Fee or ground lease, zoning and special use approvals, and the cooling water or air-cooled design the site will support.
- EPC or GMP contract
- Fixed price, date certain, liquidated damages for delay and underperformance, and a contractor balance sheet that can stand behind them.
- Executed leases and tenant credit file
- Rent per kW per month, term, escalators, expansion and termination rights, and the credit of the entity actually on the lease rather than its parent.
- Independent engineer report
- Third-party review of the budget, schedule, and design, and the sign-off basis for each construction draw.
- Equipment procurement schedule
- Generators, switchgear, transformers, and chillers, with order dates, deposits, and the float between shell delivery and full fit-out.
Ready to Transact
Working on a data center deal?
Send us the basics. We'll come back with a capital strategy, indicative pricing, and the short list of lenders worth talking to.