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BlackRock’s Meta-linked El Paso data center financing tightens after strong demand

BlackRock’s Meta-linked El Paso data center financing tightens after strong demand

Meta’s roughly $14 billion, 1-gigawatt El Paso project is part of a broader shift toward Wall Street-backed AI infrastructure, with BlackRock set to take an 80% ownership stake and capacity expected in 2028.

Fact Check
Every element of the claim is corroborated. The official Meta/BlackRock PR Newswire release confirms the ~$14 billion total development cost for the 1 GW El Paso project, online in 2028, backed by both companies (80% BlackRock funds, 20% Meta), with ~$12.5 billion in debt. Bloomberg confirms the precise $12.55 billion bond deal for the El Paso project. The Business Times confirms roughly $20 billion in orders (1.6x oversubscribed). The claim's characterization of 'strong demand' is slightly generous—Business Times describes a 'soft reception' where the deal did not tighten—but the ~$20 billion order figure itself is accurate.
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Summary

BlackRock’s $12.55 billion investment-grade bond financing tied to Meta’s El Paso, Texas, data center project tightened in early Monday trading after attracting about $20 billion of orders. The bonds were issued at a 7.534% yield, or 287.5 basis points over Treasuries, and later traded around 260 basis points. The broader project involves about $14 billion in development costs for a 1-gigawatt facility expected to bring capacity online in 2028, with Meta contributing $2.3 billion in assets and BlackRock providing $4.9 billion in cash at closing. BlackRock is set to take an 80% ownership stake in the project, underscoring how Wall Street firms are becoming major financiers of AI infrastructure. Meta has used a similar structure before, including an October deal with Blue Owl Capital for the Hyperion AI data center campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana, where Blue Owl funds directly invested about $3 billion for an 80% stake and a special-purpose holding company called Beignet Investor was created to issue about $27 billion in project bonds.

Terms & Concepts
  • investment-grade bond: Debt rated at a level generally considered to carry lower default risk than speculative-grade bonds.
  • basis points: A unit equal to one-hundredth of a percentage point, commonly used to describe yield spreads and rate moves.
  • special-purpose holding company: A legal entity created for a specific transaction or asset, often used to own projects and issue financing tied to them.