ING puts $500M data center loan portfolio up for sale after midterm results

Dutch lender ING Group put a $500 million portfolio of a dozen data center loans up for auction on November 5, 2026, with bids due November 19. The rare sale includes debt tied to Vantage Data Centers, CyrusOne, and a $25 million slice of OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle's Stargate project in New Mexico. The auction follows a Democratic U.S. midterm election sweep that triggered a $3 trillion market selloff, a 6.4% drop in the Nasdaq 100, and calls for a construction moratorium in Texas.

ING data center loan sale

• ▪The data center loan portfolio put up for sale by ING Group includes debt tied to operators Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne
• ▪The loan portfolio put up for sale by ING Group includes a $25 million slice backing a New Mexico data center site that is part of the Stargate project involving OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp., and Oracle Corp.
• ▪Dutch lender ING Group put a roughly $500 million portfolio of data center loans up for sale in a bids-wanted-in-competition auction on November 5, 2026
• ▪Oracle Corp. sent the developer of its New Mexico Stargate project site a notice citing force majeure
• ▪The $500 million loan portfolio put up for sale by ING Group consists of a dozen loans, with bids due on November 19, 2026, and requiring a minimum bid size of $10 million

Post-midterm AI investment selloff

• ▪A Democratic sweep in the U.S. midterm elections preceding November 5, 2026, generated broader market pessimism and calls for a construction moratorium regarding artificial intelligence project buildouts
• ▪The Democratic governor-elect of Texas called for an immediate moratorium on data center construction projects in Texas

Market impact on AI sector

• ▪Junk bonds tied to data center developers CoreWeave Inc. and Galaxy Digital Inc. experienced sharp declines in the high-yield market following the U.S. midterm elections
• ▪A stock market selloff erased $3 trillion in market value from S&P 500 companies following the U.S. midterm elections, hitting chipmakers and neocloud companies
• ▪Data center operators Applied Digital Corp., Cipher Digital, and IREN each fell more than 14% during the stock market selloff following the U.S. midterm elections
• ▪On November 5, 2026, the Nasdaq 100 index fell as much as 6.4% amid investor retreat from artificial intelligence investments

AI debt absorption limits

• ▪Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc. sought to syndicate portions of a chip financing deal tied to SpaceX that they committed to in October 2026 before pricing
• ▪Wall Street credit markets faced growing risk that investor capacity to absorb artificial intelligence-related debt was nearing its limit