Bain Bids to Take Chindata Private at 33% Premium

Chindata Group Holdings has obtained a takeover supply from chief backer Bain Capital that values the Beijing-based information centre operator at round $2.9 billion.

US non-public fairness main Bain, which holds 42.17 % of the entire issued and excellent share capital of Chindata, supplied to purchase the shares it doesn’t already personal within the firm for $8 per American depositary share, Chindata stated Wednesday in a press launch.

The proposal represents a 33 % premium to Tuesday’s closing value and a 38 % premium to the volume-weighted common value over the last 30 buying and selling days, in accordance to Bain. Chindata’s NASDAQ-listed shares closed 14.6 % larger at $6.94 in Wednesday commerce, leaving them down 12.6 % within the 12 months to date.

“We believe that we offer a high degree of closing certainty and are well positioned to negotiate and complete the proposed acquisition on an expedited basis,” Bain stated in a letter addressed to Chindata’s board of administrators.

Ad Hoc Panel Mulls Offer

Chindata on Thursday morning introduced the formation of a particular committee to consider and think about Bain’s supply. The panel consists of three unbiased administrators: Thomas J Manning, who will chair the committee, in addition to Gang Yu and Weili Hong.

Bain advised the board that it plans to finance the acquisition with a mix of fairness and debt capital and that it doesn’t intend to promote its stake in Chindata to any third get together.

Bloomberg reported in April of final 12 months that Chindata had begun to subject preliminary takeover affords from potential suitors together with Shanghai-based GDS Holdings and EQT-backed EdgeConneX, spurring a quick inventory surge at the time.

Chindata founder Alex Ju left his CEO put up in late 2021, a bit over a 12 months after Bain led the  firm’s IPO with backing from institutional buyers APG, BlackRock and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Ju agreed to a “transition agreement” wherein he would assume a non-executive position at the agency he established in 2015.

Huapeng Wu succeeded Ju as Chindata’s new CEO in March 2022. Wu joined Chindata in 2019 as head of the corporate’s home enterprise and was credited with having strengthened the info centre operator’s buyer community, telecom partnerships and authorities relations.

Positive Signs

If the deliberate privatisation goes forward, Bain will take full management of an organization that posted 56.8 % year-on-year income development and a 167.5 % internet earnings surge within the first quarter of 2023.

The whole capability of Chindata’s platform, which includes information centres in China, India and Malaysia, rose by 27 megawatts to attain 898MW through the first three months of the 12 months, up from 704MW in the identical interval of 2022.

“During the first quarter of 2023, the company continued to advance with our highly demanding project delivery schedule,” Wu stated in Chindata’s quarterly report. “Demand from existing clients was healthy and ramp up was as scheduled. As a result, we continued to grow our top and bottom line, with adjusted EBITDA beating market consensus for eleven consecutive quarters.”