A trust listing that would have priced at about $15 billion is on hold until next year, people familiar with the plans said. It follows Firmus and the data-center arm of PLDT in pulling back from planned listings.
Blackstone's largest bet in Asia-Pacific has lost its route to the public market for now.
AirTrunk has shelved, for now, a Singapore listing of a trust holding some of its data centers, people familiar with the plans said. The Sydney-founded operator, which Blackstone and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought in 2024 for A$24 billion, had hoped to raise about $1.5 billion in a deal valuing the trust near $15 billion. A September or October launch is off the table, and the target is now early next year.
Blackstone declined to comment. AirTrunk did not respond to requests for comment.
The yield on offer
The company had already been prepared to pay investors more. It weighed a payout of roughly 6% on the trust, half a point above its earlier plan, the people said. REITs pay out most of their income and compete with bonds for investors, so rising interest rates pressure their prices. The people said the Federal Reserve's September rate increase, and the prospect of more, kept investors cautious.
Listed property trusts in Singapore have lost about an eighth of their value since late July. Last week a data-center unit of the Philippine carrier PLDT pushed its own trust listing into next year.
Other AI-infrastructure listings
The AirTrunk delay follows Firmus, which dropped its planned $5 billion Australian listing last week. Nvidia is among that data-center developer's backers. Tuesday's selling in Asian chip stocks dragged the region's equities to their lowest in more than two months.
At $1.5 billion against a $15 billion REIT, the offering would have sold about a tenth of the trust to public investors. The offering could have served as a modest partial exit for Blackstone.
Blackstone shares were down about 4% in afternoon trading.
Market implications
One reading is that this is a timing problem. Higher rates and a volatile market for AI-related stocks make a REIT launch expensive now, the company is still targeting early next year, and no change in demand for its data centers has been reported.
A second reading is that the exit route for AI infrastructure is narrowing. Several data-center listings have stalled in recent days, investors are asking for higher yields, and private owners may have to hold assets longer or find private buyers instead.
What to watch
A revised timetable or yield for the AirTrunk REIT, any private sale of a stake in the business, and the next attempts to list data-center assets in Asia will show whether the window reopens.
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