Sources tell Reuters that Bain is looking to sell a stake in BDC, Singapore-headquartered, with nine data centres across Malaysia, Thailand, and India, at a $5 billion valuation. Citi and JPMorgan are running the process. ByteDance is the anchor tenant. No deal has been agreed and talks are preliminary.

Bain Capital is seeking a buyer for a stake in Bridge Data Centres (BDC), a pan-Asian hyperscale data centre operator it has backed since 2017, at a valuation of approximately $5 billion, Reuters has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Citigroup and JPMorgan are running the sale process. No final decision has been made and the talks remain at an early stage, according to the sources.

BDC, headquartered in Singapore, currently operates nine data centres: six in Malaysia, two in Thailand, and one in India. TikTok parent ByteDance is the company’s anchor tenant, particularly for its hyperscale campus in Malaysia.

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The operator raised $2.8 billion in senior secured bank financing in 2024 and, as recently as March 2026, was reported by Bloomberg to be in talks with lenders for an additional loan of up to $6 billion, with a 12-month tenor, to fund expansion in Thailand, specifically a new campus in Bangkok’s Eastern Economic Corridor.

In January 2026, BDC also announced plans to invest up to S$5 billion (approximately $3.9 billion) in Singapore, targeting regional capacity of around 2 gigawatts by 2030.

The sale process is the culmination of a strategic review that has been running since late 2025. Bloomberg reported in December 2025 that Bain was weighing options including a minority stake sale or a continuation vehicle.

Bloomberg confirmed in January 2026 that Citi and JPMorgan had been hired. CNBC reported in March 2026 that Bain was offering up to 70% of BDC to potential buyers, with preliminary marketing materials already distributed. The Reuters report on 23 April is the first to attach a specific valuation of $5 billion to the process, prior coverage used the framing “several billion dollars.”

The geopolitical dimension of the BDC story is significant and requires careful handling. Chinese technology companies, including ByteDance, have used data centres outside China, particularly in Malaysia, as a way to access high-end Nvidia chips that US export controls have blocked them from purchasing directly in China.

That dynamic has made BDC’s Malaysian assets both commercially attractive and politically sensitive. Any acquisition by a US hyperscaler or a fund with US government ties would face scrutiny on exactly these grounds.

Potential buyers are most likely to be infrastructure-focused funds, sovereign wealth vehicles from Asia (particularly Singapore or the Gulf), or other data centre operators without the same exposure to US-China technology restrictions.

For Bain, the timing reflects a calculated exit from what has become a complex portfolio. The firm invested in BDC in 2017, merged it with ChinData (its China data centre business) in 2019, took ChinData private in a $3.16 billion deal in 2023, and then separated the two businesses, selling the China assets (by then renamed WinTriX DC Group) to a consortium led by Shenzhen Dongyangguang Industry for approximately $4 billion, a transaction that closed in early 2026.

BDC is the remaining international piece. A $5 billion valuation would represent a significant multiple on Bain’s 2017 entry, and the timing, amid peak AI infrastructure demand and compressed supply, is arguably the most favourable exit window the sector has seen.

Investor appetite for Asian data centre assets has remained strong despite broader market uncertainty, driven by the same dynamics pushing valuations globally: hyperscale tenants competing for space rather than operators competing for tenants, power constraints limiting new supply, and long-term lease structures providing predictable cash flows.

BDC’s specific risk profile includes geographic concentration in Southeast Asia and India, tenant concentration (ByteDance represents substantial revenue), and the regulatory overhang on Chinese-linked data infrastructure, all of which will affect the pool of buyers willing to close.