Bain Capital to take Chindata private to get full ownership

New York: Bain Capital signed an agreement to take Chindata Group Holdings private, a deal that allows the buyout firm to take full ownership of the data center business.

The private investment firm will pay $4.30 per ordinary stock and $8.60 per American depositary share, according to the firm’s statement released Friday. That’s roughly in line with a Bloomberg News report. The offer represents a 7.5 per cent increase from the proposed purchase price when the firms first contemplated a takeover.

Bain Capital will acquire all of the outstanding shares of the company, together with a number of existing and new investors. Bain already owned about 42.2 per cent of Beijing-based Chindata. The deal implies an equity value of Chindata of about $3.16 billion, according to a press release.

“We believe taking Chindata Group private is the best way to provide attractive returns to existing public shareholders and secure the long-term success of the company,” said Jonathan Zhu, partner and co-head of Asia private equity for Bain Capital in the statement.

Data centers have become hot assets among investors, in part due to the perception of their having stable returns, and on expectations that their growth will continue as they are needed to power technology that’s becoming ever more reliant on data processing.

Chindata operates carrier-neutral data centers in locations including China, India and Malaysia, according to its website. Bain bought Chindata in 2019 from Wangsu Science & Technology and merged it with its portfolio firm Bridge Data Centers. In 2020, Chindata raised $621 million through its US initial public offering.