Ares Secondaries adds to Sabey data center stake, cumulative commitment past $500 million

Ares Secondaries funds have added to their position in Sabey Data Center Properties, pushing Ares' cumulative commitment to the platform past $500 million, Sabey Corp. and National Real Estate Advisors said in a joint announcement. The follow-on builds on the minority equity investment Ares disclosed in July 2026 and attaches no timetable to the remaining dollars and no share of the platform to the money.

Sabey Data Center Properties owns, develops and operates hyperscale and enterprise data center campuses in top-tier U.S. markets, with about 275 megawatts in service and a pipeline the company projects at roughly 737 megawatts by 2033. The distance between those two numbers is 462 megawatts of capacity to be entitled, built and leased over seven years, or about 66 megawatts a year against a base of 275. None of the capital is tied in the announcement to a named campus, a phase or an energization date, and no valuation is disclosed.

The follow-on comes from the secondaries funds, with no other Ares vehicle named anywhere in it. Secondaries capital is generally raised to buy existing investor positions rather than fund an operating company's expansion, so a commitment of this shape suggests the platform and its backer worked out a structure for growth equity that avoids a fresh fundraise and leaves control where it sits. That reading is inference; the announcement offers no terms, no governance detail and no explanation of the vehicle choice.

Kevin Verdi, executive vice president and chief investment officer at National Real Estate Advisors, tied the follow-on to "continued conviction in SDCP's long-term value proposition and growth trajectory" and to disciplined growth and demand for cloud and AI infrastructure. Verdi is due to take the chief executive title in January 2027, a promotion PWD covered in September, and National named Ben Kanne managing director of investments that same month; Kanne helped launch the firm's 2021 data center fund.

One input the announcement leaves unpriced is power. Tim Mirick, SDCP's president, attributes the raise to confidence in the platform and its ability to develop and operate mission-critical infrastructure, and the megawatt pipeline assumes the campuses get energized on schedule. The binding constraint on data-center capital has moved to statehouse policy and lender appetite, and the $500 million-plus figure addresses neither. The next tranche is the one to watch: if it arrives with a named campus, a utility agreement or an energization date attached, the growth case stops being a megawatt count and starts being a schedule.