Dutch lender ING has placed a portfolio of roughly $500 million in data center loans on the auction block, marking one of the first rare public sales backed purely by the sector’s debt as lenders scramble to offload risk from the artificial intelligence boom, Bloomberg reported.
mark.thompson business editor
ING Offloads $500 Million in Data Center Debt
The auction covers more than a dozen loans structured through a competitive bidding process known as a bids-wanted-in-competition, or BWIC format. Bids sized at $10 million or more are due by November 19, according to reports. Among the assets is a $25 million credit stake tied to a New Mexico data center campus. That site forms part of Stargate, the infrastructure venture involving OpenAI, SoftBank Group, and Oracle, with a designed capacity of 2.45 GW and an original target of coming online in 2028 powered mainly by gas fuel cells.
The portfolio also contains debt linked to prominent operators Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne. Investment banks typically use a lend-to-distribute model for such financing. Hank Calenti, global markets strategist at SMBC, noted that buyers in these auctions range from private credit investors and asset managers to insurers seeking higher returns. ING’s wholesale banking division has supported more than 200 data center transactions globally, positioning the institution among the lenders exposed to the industry’s soaring capital needs.
Political Shifts and Market Selloffs Hit AI Debt
The rare debt disposal arrives days after a sweeping Democratic victory in the U.S. midterms that immediately rattled market sentiment regarding the construction outlook for AI infrastructure. Democratic gains have raised concerns over increased regulatory scrutiny and potential construction moratoriums in key states. In Texas, Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa called for an immediate halt to data center development until local residents receive legal protections.
That regulatory anxiety coincided with a steep equity selloff. The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 Index plunged 6.4% in a single session, wiping out roughly $2.3 trillion in market value according to market reports—as investors fled AI-adjacent assets. High-yield bonds felt the pressure in tandem.
Hedge Funds Pull Back from Sector Debt
Andrzej Skiba, head of the BlueBay US fixed income team at RBC Global Asset Management, described recent weeks as a period of massive sellers
and massive hedge fund capitulation within the space,
reflecting an industry-wide retreat from AI-related debt. Pruksa Iamthongthong, head of APAC equities at Aberdeen Investments, pointed out that the market is actively reassessing potential delays to domestic data center construction and severe constraints around compute capacity.
Lenders have explored alternative risk-transfer avenues for months. Earlier this year, Wall Street firms such as JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley evaluated offloading debt via private sales and significant risk transfers to free up balance sheet capacity. Meanwhile, large institutional buyers continue to adjust long-term exposure: Nippon Life Insurance plans to expand its AI infrastructure-related loans from about 1 trillion yen to 2 trillion yen by 2035, targeting U.S. projects where project finance spreads average more than 2 percentage points above funding costs.
Oracle Issues Force Majeure Notice Amid Permit Delays
On its September 10 call, Oracle described the New Mexico build as definitely on track, though Oracle later issued a force majeure notice on September 24 to a unit under developer Blue Owl Capital due to possible power supply and permit delays.
Data from Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage unit indicate that hedge funds reduced tech sector exposure in the five trading days ending October 15 at the fastest pace since recordkeeping began in 2016. High-yield bonds tied to CoreWeave and Galaxy Digital were severely impacted as investors trimmed AI infrastructure allocations. Concurrently, Trepp reported that approximately $4.42 billion in commercial mortgage-backed securities loans reach hard maturity in November 2026.
How many other major institutional lenders will follow ING to the secondary market with forced debt sales before these November 19 bids close?