Blue Owl Capital Management's funds announced on Friday, August 28th, that they are leading the arrangement of $2.4 billion in computing equipment financing for Australian-listed company Iren, which will be used to purchase NVIDIA air-cooled accelerated computing equipment, including Blackwell Ultra series GPUs, for deployment at the Mackenzie campus in British Columbia, Canada.
The financing structure is split into a $1.2 billion senior secured term loan and $1.2 billion in senior secured notes, with funds to be drawn down in stages according to the agreed-upon drawdown window. The tranches will be released after equipment arrives and passes commissioning, meaning Iren will not need to draw the full $2.4 billion at once. Iren's global pipeline of data centers under construction and in planning has already surpassed 5 gigawatts.
Financing structure and purpose
Blue Owl's press release clarified that the funds are earmarked specifically for the air-cooled NVIDIA cluster at the Mackenzie campus, covering both training and inference workloads. Iren's Chief Financial Officer, Anthony Lewis, stated that customer demand for AI computing power is accelerating, and this financing will support the continued expansion of the campus. According to materials disclosed in Iren's fiscal year results on August 27th, the financing is led by Blue Owl, with Pacific Investment Management Company participating as an advisor to some investors. The fixed interest rate is 9%, covering 90% of the associated GPU capital expenditures. Combined with customer prepayments, the total financing can exceed the chip purchase amount and be used to subsidize other data center expenses.
Market reports citing filing information state that both the loan and notes carry a 9% interest rate, with a maturity of two and a half years from the date of disbursement. Blue Owl's press release did not list the interest rate or tenor, nor did it separately mention PIMCO's co-lead role. Local Canadian media reports indicate that this funding accounts for approximately 90% of the total amount needed for the Mackenzie campus expansion.
Distinction from June's investment-grade financing
This $2.4 billion financing differs from another $3.65 billion investment-grade GPU financing that Iren closed on June 1st of this year. The latter received A/A (low) ratings from Fitch and DBRS, covered approximately 96% of the $5.81 billion in chip expenditures, primarily corresponded to the Childress campus in Texas, and was backed by Microsoft's offtake contract. In contrast, this $2.4 billion financing has not received an equivalent investment-grade rating, carries a 9% interest rate, and does not identify an anchor client name in publicly available materials. The two debt packages correspond to different campuses and follow different rating paths.
Company background and market reaction
Iren, which has transitioned from a Bitcoin mining operation into a vertically integrated AI cloud platform, is building data centers in Mackenzie, Prince George, Canal Flats, and Texas, with a target of achieving 480 megawatts of AI cloud capacity by the end of 2026. On Friday at the New York close, Iren's share price fell approximately 13% to $35.07. The decline occurred during the window when the financing announcement and financial results were released on the same day, and the company has not attributed the drop to this debt financing.
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