For Larry Fink, BlackRock Inc’s more than US$12bil debt sale for a Meta Platforms Inc data centre is the result of years spent transforming a public investments giant into a heavy hitter in private markets too.
The coming sale brings together investors from Fink’s two big recent acquisitions – US$12.5bil for Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and US$12bil for HPS Investment Partners – and pushes BlackRock further into an increasingly competitive landscape to help finance the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
Rivals Blue Owl Capital Inc and Blackstone Inc have so far led the biggest data centre financing.
The deal is also an example of how senior executives at BlackRock are planning to leverage the two units for potential future transactions, according t