Morgan Stanley, one of the key players in financing the artificial-intelligence race, is considering offloading some of its data-center exposure via a so-called significant risk transfer.
The bank has held preliminary talks with potential investors about an SRT tied to a portfolio of loans to businesses involved in AI infrastructure, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is confidential.
SRTs backed by data-center exposure are still a nascent slice of the credit-risk transfer market, where banks hedge their credit exposure, manage capital ratios and free up balance-sheet capacity for more lending by selling credit-linked notes to institutional investors. Morgan Stanley is also exploring other ways to hedge or syndicate part of its data-center risk, the people said, and there is no guarantee the early-stage SRT talks will result in a deal.
A representative for the New York-based bank declined to comment.
Morgan Stanley in October arranged over $27 billion of debt and about $2.5 billion of equity financing for a special-purpose vehicle tied to the development of Meta Platforms Inc.’s Hyperion data-center site in Richland Parish, Louisiana.
