After the private placement was terminated, Aofei Data's 2.1 billion yuan private REITs received acceptance

Guan Dian View News: After terminating the private placement of shares, Aofei Data has chosen to revitalize its holdings through asset securitization.

Recently, the China Securities—Gold Stone Fund—Aofei Data 2026年第1期 green data center holding-type real estate asset support special plan has been accepted. The filing size is RMB 2.1 billion. The issuer is Aofei Data, and the manager is China Securities.

Aofei Data stated that by carrying out the holding-type real estate asset support special plan, the company will further revitalize its existing assets and unlock their potential value. This is beneficial for promoting a healthy cycle of investment in the company’s data center development and operations sector, facilitating sustained, sound and steady development, and enhancing the company’s ability to operate sustainably.

What is worth noting is that in 2025, Aofei Data had planned a private placement of no more than RMB 1.7B to build five data center buildings in Langfang Gu’an, with 8,925 8.8KW racks to be deployed. A few months later, this private placement plan was terminated.

Twists and turns in the private placement

Aofei Data had previously announced that it planned, as the originator, to carry out the application and issuance work for the holding-type real estate asset support special plan.

The underlying assets of this project are the Tianjin Panggu Cloud Tai Data Center project located at No. 7 Zeng 1, Dongmaqiu Town, Wuluo Highway (Dongmaqiu Town section), Wuqing District, Tianjin, as well as its related supporting facilities. The issuance targets are professional institutional investors, in which the originator or its affiliates will subscribe for no more than 40% of the units.

Industrial Technology Line learned that Aofei Data is a leading third-party internet data center (IDC) service provider in China. It is positioned as an end-to-end solution provider for “cloud-network integration and computing power services.” Its business covers areas including internet data centers (IDC), cloud computing and artificial intelligence data centers (AIDC), green energy, and data network interconnection.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the company sits downstream of basic telecommunications operators. By using existing internet communication lines and bandwidth resources, and through self-built or leased standardized telecom-grade data center environments, it builds multi-network service platforms connecting networks of different basic telecom operators using its own technology. It provides services such as bandwidth leasing, rack leasing, and IP address leasing to customers across various industries, especially internet industry customers.

It is understood that its business currently covers more than 40 cities in China. In cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Langfang, Tianjin, Chengdu, Haikou, Nanning, and Nanchang, it has 14 self-built and self-operated data centers. Its customer base includes internet companies, telecom operators, financial institutions, manufacturing enterprises, and government organizations. Its core customers include major internet vendors such as Baidu, Kuaishou, Jinshan Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud. It provides basic IDC services such as rack leasing and bandwidth leasing, as well as value-added services including computing equipment sales, computing power leasing, content delivery network (CDN), data synchronization, and network security.

As of the end of June 2025, Aofei Data has invested in and put into operation self-built and self-operated data centers with a total number of racks exceeding 57k. Its website shows that its rack capacity exceeds 100k.

What is worth noting is that previously, Aofei Data planned a private placement of no more than RMB 57k to build a new-generation cloud computing and artificial intelligence industrial park (Langfang Gu’an Building F, G, H, I, and J). This fund-raising project’s specific construction content was five data center server room buildings within the industrial park. The project construction period was 18 months. After completion, Aofei Data would add five more data center buildings, deploying 8,925 8.8KW racks, with a clearly increased number of rack resources.

The project’s main revenue is IDC service revenue from equipment hosting. Based on an estimated 10-year operational service period, the project’s payback period after income tax is 7.40 years (including the construction period), and the internal rate of return after income tax is 11.49%.

Aofei Data previously said that, due to increasingly strict energy consumption controls in first-tier cities, the scarce resource attributes of data centers in first-tier cities and surrounding areas will continue to stand out. After the projects planned to be funded by this fundraising are completed, the company will add 8,925 racks in areas around Beijing, obtain more customer orders, meet customer demand, and enhance the company’s market share and industry position.

However, this plan did not proceed as expected. Earlier this year, Aofei Data withdrew the plan, stating that, based on the company’s actual business development and future strategic planning, and after comprehensively considering the progress of the projects funded by this fundraising and conducting thorough communication and prudent analysis and demonstration with relevant parties, it decided to terminate this private placement matter.

Binding with cloud vendors

From an operating perspective, since its founding, Aofei Data’s performance has remained on a steady growth track, with its operating revenue and profit scales continuously expanding.

According to the disclosed third-quarter report, in the first three quarters Aofei Data’s operating revenue was RMB 100k, up 15.33% year on year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was RMB 145 million, up 37.29% year on year; and net profit after excluding non-recurring items attributable to the parent company was RMB 144 million, up 27.88% year on year.

In terms of business structure, IDC services remain the company’s most core source of revenue. In data for the first half of 2025, IDC services achieved revenue of approximately RMB 895 million, accounting for about 78%. Other comprehensive internet services (including computing power leasing, equipment sales, and comprehensive operations and maintenance services) generated revenue of RMB 194 million, accounting for about 17%. As the intelligent computing power center (AIDC) projects advance, the company’s supply capacity for computing power leasing and comprehensive services will be enhanced accordingly.

Meanwhile, in the earlier period of 2015–2024, Aofei Data’s operating revenue grew from only RMB 160 million to RMB 1.7B, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 33.57%. In 2018, Aofei Data officially listed on the ChiNext board, and then the IDC business entered a phase of rapid expansion, with revenue accelerating its growth starting in 2019.

However, in recent years, Aofei Data’s net profit attributable to shareholders has declined in phases, mainly due to the rapid expansion of its fixed asset and liability scales. On the one hand, as large data center projects such as Langfang Gu’an, Tianjin Wuqing, and Guangzhou Nansha have been completed one after another, fixed assets added significantly, and depreciation and amortization as well as financial expenses increased in parallel.

On the other hand, Aofei Data made provisions for asset impairment of a certain scale in response to the shutdown of renovations and upgrades for some data centers and issues with certain customers’ operations, which has created pressure on net profit in the short term.

Previously, Aofei Data planned to continue advancing the construction and delivery of data centers in Langfang Gu’an, Tianjin Wuqing, and Hebei Dingxing in 2025. The civil engineering work for the Hebei Huailai data center is progressing in an orderly manner, and is expected to complete initial operation in late 2025 to early 2026.

It is also worth noting that in these years of fast development, Aofei Data has deeply linked itself with multiple internet giants.

For example, in 2020, Aofei Data and Alibaba signed a cooperation memorandum for locking data center resource in the South China region. Aofei Data would be responsible for customizing data center rack resources for Alibaba in South China, and for undertaking the entire process work including investment, design, construction, and operations and maintenance. The contract term was initially set at 5 years. If there is no objection from both parties, it would automatically be extended to 8 years upon expiry.

In 2021 and 2022, Aofei Data also signed agreements with Baidu one after another to provide Guangzhou Nansha and Langfang Gu’an data center services to Baidu. The term is 6 years, and the total expected cooperation revenue is approximately RMB 1.95 billion.

In 2024, Aofei Data announced a plan to invest in expanding and building a computing power center in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, explicitly mentioning providing computing power leasing services for leading cloud vendors such as Alibaba Cloud.

Disclaimer: The content and data in this article are compiled by Guan Dian View News based on publicly available information and do not constitute investment advice. Please verify before using.

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