It's a neat coincidence. Three data centre developers — Polar, Prime, and Pure — turned up in the bond market within weeks of each other, sharing little beyond a first initial and a similar pitch. Prime and Pure both struggled to get their deals done. Polar, the first mover, managed to clear the market, though even that one looks shaky in secondary.
Polar's €800m E+600bps floating-rate notes in May 2026 were Europe's first genuine attempt to fund a data centre build through the bond market rather than relying on bank or securitisation debt. Using high yield to fund AI-related capex is already mainstream in the US, and Polar's arrival looked like it might open the floodgates in Europe.
But the mood in European high yield has since turned, as investors take a harder look at the risks. Prime came next, and approached the market twice. Its first bond cleared at the beginning of June. The second was a Norwegian-law bond deal initially marketed at $600m and trimmed to $500m — and was pulled in mid-July before it got away.
And most recently, it is Oaktree-backed Pure which has abandoned €1bn of unsecured bondsand turned to...
