11:05 AM EDT, 10/07/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Blue Owl Capital (OWL) said Monday that it agreed to acquire digital infrastructure fund manager IPI Partners for $1 billion in a move that will add $10.5 billion in assets under management.

The alternate asset manager is buying the business from affiliates of ICONIQ Capital and Iron Point Partners. The purchase price consists of 80% Blue Owl equity and 20% cash.

The transaction is expected to close in this year's fourth quarter or the first quarter of 2025. Blue Owl forecasts that it will be neutral to 2025 earnings and "modestly accretive" in 2026.

IPI Partners serves large hyperscale and enterprise data center users. Its portfolio includes 82 data centers with more than 2.2 gigawatts of leased capacity across the US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific.

"There is a massive market opportunity to finance data centers, matched by an increasing investor appetite for additional strategies investing behind cloud and (artificial intelligence)-driven secular tailwinds," Blue Owl Co-Chief Executives Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz said in a statement.

The IPI business will enhance Blue Owl's digital infrastructure strategy through its real estate platform. IPI Managing Partner Matt A'Hearn will lead Blue Owl's digital infrastructure strategy and report to Blue Owl Co-President Marc Zahr, who heads the real estate platform.

"IPI has grown into one of the largest private developers and investors of data centers globally by solving problems for the leading global technology companies," ICONIQ Founding Partner Divesh Makan said in the joint statement.

An affiliate of ICONIQ will provide services, such as investment analysis and investor relations, to Blue Owl in exchange for milestone payments. Blue Owl expects to make these payments between 2026 and 2028.

"We are confident that the addition of Blue Owl will enable IPI to achieve even greater scale to meet the needs of the world's largest technology companies," Tom Lynch, a managing partner at Iron Point, said.

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