ING Puts 12 Data Center Loans Worth $500 Million Up for Auction After AI Stock Rout
Dutch bank ING is taking offers on a dozen data center loans worth about $500 million, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 5, citing people familiar with the matter. Bids of at least $10 million are due Nov. 19.
The portfolio includes a $25 million slice backing a large New Mexico site that is part of Stargate, the joint project of OpenAI, SoftBank Group and Oracle.
CNBC added that other loans involve Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne, and that an ING spokesperson declined to comment.
How the Auction Works
ING is using a bids-wanted-in-competition process, known as a BWIC. Investors compete to buy pieces of a loan portfolio, and bids at or above the $10 million minimum are due by Nov. 19. Bloomberg described the format as a rare one for loans of this type.
The $25 million Stargate loan is one component of the package. Reuters said the bank is offering the loans as a single portfolio, sold all at once.
Why Banks Sell Construction Loans
Hank Calenti, global markets strategist at SMBC, told CNBC that investment banks typically use a lend-to-distribute model. Under it, a bank makes a loan intending to pass the exposure to other investors.
Buyers can include private credit funds, asset managers and insurers, which want the higher expected returns.
Calenti said whether banks sell more because of fears of data center moratoriums should come down to a trade-off. One side is the discount a bank accepts to sell. The other is the cash freed up for more lending.
He listed the need to explain the exposure to a bank's board as part of the cost.
ING is not the first lender reported to be reducing exposure. CNBC noted that JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were said earlier this year to be exploring ways to cut their data center construction lending.
A Financial Times report on May 3 said the options included private sales of debt to non-bank lenders and significant risk transfers, which move part of a bank's credit risk to investors and free up balance sheet capacity.
Selloff and Oracle Notice Frame the Sale
The auction follows a steep drop in AI-linked shares after Democrats' strong showing in the U.S. midterm elections raised fears of moratoriums or tighter rules on data center construction.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5% on Thursday, Nov. 5, its worst day since April 2025, and closed in correction territory. Reuters said about $3 trillion in S&P 500 market value was erased. Applied Digital, Cipher Digital and IREN each fell more than 14%.
Pruksa Iamthongthong, head of APAC equities at Aberdeen Investments, told CNBC, "We think near-term volatility could continue as the market assesses potential delays to U.S. data center construction and constraints around compute capacity."
The New Mexico campus has its own recent history. Bloomberg reported that Oracle sent the developer a force majeure notice, a contract clause that can excuse a party from obligations when events outside its control intervene.
MLQ (mlq.ai) identified the developer as Stack Infrastructure, a Blue Owl Capital portfolio company, and said the notice went out in September. Oracle has said the project remains on its planned schedule and that such notices do not by themselves establish a delay.
Networth.com covered Oracle's share slide after the notice.
What Readers Can Track
The loans sit on bank balance sheets, not in consumer accounts, and no source describes a direct effect on households.
The financing behind the AI buildout is a wider theme, covered in networth.com's report on Blackstone's Jon Gray and the push for more equity in AI projects.
The price buyers offer for ING's loans will not be known until the bids come in after Nov. 19.