TPG pursues $5bn acquisition of UK data centre group Ark
TPG is in talks to buy Ark Data Centres from Elliott Management at a valuation of about $5bn, according to people familiar with the matter, although a deal is not guaranteed. Ark, founded in 2005 and based in Wiltshire, runs 27 data centres across the UK and Belgium. It has close UK government ties through Crown Hosting Data Centres, a joint venture with the Cabinet Office, and its tenants include IBM and Palo Alto Networks. Elliott first invested in 2012 and is majority owner; Revcap is a minority investor. Reuters reported last September that Elliott was weighing options including a sale valuing Ark at more than £3bn. At about $5bn it would be among the top five data centre deals worldwide this year, according to Synergy Research Group, in a year with $89.4bn of deals (50% more than all of 2025), including the $40bn takeover of Aligned Data Centres by BlackRock's GIP and MGX. TPG's real estate arm entered data centres in 2019, backed a Crusoe fundraise and is lead partner in DeployCo with OpenAI. Caveats: talks are ongoing and may not lead to a deal; the FT does not say whether $5bn is enterprise or equity value, and gives no capacity, financials, signing timing or rival bidders; TPG and Elliott declined to comment, and Ark and Revcap did not respond.
Why it matters
A roughly $5bn private-equity bid for a UK operator with government anchor tenants shows how much capital is chasing European AI-era compute capacity, and it would mark a long-hold exit for Elliott (owner since 2012). It fits a record year for data-centre M&A. But it is still talks, with no terms beyond the headline valuation.
