Multiple firms looking to acquire Chinese data centre operator Vnet

Chinese data centre firm Vnet, which had a non-binding offer to acquire in April, may get a rival bid from MBK Partners and an unnamed partner.

According to Bloomberg, MBK Partners has expressed interest in acquiring Vnet in a joint offer with a partner that is as yet unidentified. If MBK Partners makes a bid, it would have to compete with the proposal submitted by Chinese private equity firm Hina Group, in partnership with Industrial Bank Co’s Shanghai branch.

The Hina/Industrial Bank offer was a cash proposal at $8/share, which Bloomberg calculates would value the company at around $1.1 billion USD.

Vnet (formerly 21Vianet) is a Chinese data centre owner/operator, with 50 data centres in 30 cities across China. Facilities are located in three areas: Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta, and Macao Bay.

The company offers full-lifecycle data centre services with high availability and low energy consumption. According to the website, “Vnet Group starts from the perspective of power supply capacity and maximized IT output through standardized load calculation.”

In January of this year, Vnet received a $250 million USD investment from the New York-based Blackstone Tactical Opportunities group. At the time, Executive Chairman and Founder of Vnet Josh Chen noted, “Over the last two years, we have accelerated the growth of our data centre footprint in high-demand locations across China’s Tier-1 cities. Blackstone’s investment provides us with the capital to take advantage of a robust pipeline of attractive development projects that support our hyperscale and enterprise customers.”

Blackstone’s investment was convertible to Class A shares in the company for $11.00/share. Just three months later, Hina Group and Industrial Bank made an unsolicited takeover offer at $8.00/share. Still, after several months without progress on that deal, MBK Partners is reportedly interested in making their takeover proposal.

MBK Partners is a large North Asian private equity firm with $25.6 billion USD assets under management. In addition to weighing the possibility of submitting a competitive bid for Vnet, MBK Partners is also reportedly interested in acquiring a 30% stake in Megastudy Education, an online education company valued at more than $750 million USD (1 trillion won).