SoftBank Becomes Latest Private Capital Source To Eye DigitalBridge Acquisition
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. is negotiating an acquisition of DigitalBridge Group, adding another suitor for the publicly traded data center and digital infrastructure investment giant.
A potential price hasn’t been disclosed — the talks were first reported by Bloomberg Friday — but DigitalBridge has $108B in assets under management. However, its share price this year has put its market valuation under $3B.
The disconnect has attracted investors looking to take advantage of what they see as overblown fears of an artificial intelligence bubble dragging down some stocks.
Alternative asset manager 26North was reportedly in late-stage talks in May to take the colocation data center specialist private for an undisclosed price.
DigitalBridge has seen its stock oscillate this year amid the other buyout talks and as talk of a potential AI bubble gets louder. Shares rose by more than 45% Friday, marking the stock’s biggest single-day gain. It was trading up nearly 3% in early trading Monday, giving the firm a $2.7B market capitalization.
JPMorgan analyst Richard Choe told investors in a note Friday that the investment firm saw $28 per share, a roughly $5B valuation, as “an attractive takeout price.” A high-end valuation would put the firm around $35 per share, Choe wrote.
DigitalBridge and SoftBank declined Bisnow’s request for comment Monday morning.
DigitalBridge has grown into one of the most prominent investors in data center infrastructure during the current AI blitz. It had $14B of capital “in-flight for 2025 across the AI ecosystem,” the firm said in third-quarter results posted Oct. 30.
It grew its fee revenue by nearly $20M year-over-year to $93M in the third-quarter and posted $16.8M in net income compared to a $883K loss during the same period a year prior.
DigitalBridge acquired London-based Yondr in October 2024 in a deal that expanded its footprint by more than 420 megawatts of capacity across the globe. Vantage Data Centers, an investment fund managed by DigitalBridge and Silver Lake, closed on a $9B fund a month earlier.
SoftBank has been plowing capital into data center development, and CEO Masayoshi Son said earlier this month that the firm was close to finalizing a deal to build Trump-branded industrial parks with funding from the Japanese government.
In January, Son was also joined by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison at the White House to roll out a massive joint venture called Stargate.
President Donald Trump described the venture during a press conference at the time as a “new American company that will invest $500B, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States.”
