00:00joining us now is paul prager he is terrible chairman and ceo paul great to have you with us
00:04i want to talk about the fact that this is a 20-year lease because taking a look at the
00:09sell
00:09side reaction you had analysts from bernstein point out that most of your peers they're still
00:13securing 10 to 15 year base contracts so talk to us about how it all came together in the end
00:21um we had a we have a pretty competitive process uh we know anthropic well uh they're up at our
00:28lake mariner facility um we decided to work with them on this uh duration's important uh we're
00:36we have great quality sites so we're looking for a long-term high quality credit as an off taker
00:42uh we had a reference design they were familiar with us we worked with them it just seemed like
00:47the right thing uh and 20 years is it's the best in class lease in this space right now so
00:55i also
00:55want to touch on some of the concerns because again reading through the reaction on wall street
00:59obviously you saw a lot of that come through in the share movement yesterday but there is still
01:04this concern around here that okay you secured this part this deal with anthropic but your customer
01:10concentration could be a longer term concern so give us the roadmap about you know how you begin
01:16to address this and how you keep that momentum going you know i don't share that concern um you
01:22know in our lake mariner facility uh where our customers fluid stack uh backed by uh google credit
01:30backstop it's pretty fantastic um now here we've got a direct lease with anthropic i think it's one of
01:36the first things they've gone direct on certainly uh for this term uh they're a great credit uh we'll
01:44have uh the lease provides for terms that enable us to get an investment grade uh backstop uh anthropic
01:52has a number of offers they they have to make a decision on whose equipment they want to use but
01:56at
01:56the end of the day this will be an investment grade backstop provisions in the lease mandate that
02:01uh and uh all systems are go we're very excited about building out this facility i'm curious paul when
02:08you bought that center out there in kentucky did you already kind of know that anthropic was going to
02:12come on board i mean um we knew that they were very keen on the site we had a number
02:18of other
02:19customers that were interested in the site uh we run a process uh for us it's all about getting the
02:25best deal we can for our shareholders um but at the end of the day anthropic put the most superior
02:31deal
02:31on the table uh and we're excited to work with them again do they hold any expansion rights uh to
02:36any
02:37of the other properties like that one you bought in may uh somewhere in eastern kentucky well no but
02:43to be honest with you when you've got somebody at a site uh and you scale that site up we
02:48think
02:49ultimately this is a 500 megawatt site 401 net um we think that ultimately the site is scalable to a
02:56gig
02:57having somebody there having worked with them having a reference design them having been through all
03:02the diligence on the site certainly gives them an advantage but it's not required i mean we're
03:07looking for the best deal we can for our stakeholders we're always going to make that competitive but i
03:12can tell you anthropics is also a great partner i mean when when you negotiate with them they're
03:17looking for a win-win it's not like this is what you get this is what we get it's just
03:22been a great
03:22working relationship we built you know probably the largest data center in the united states in the
03:28shortest period of time for them with google up at our lake marina facility yeah we like working with
03:33them uh and as long as the deals make sense for our shareholders we will hope to continue to do
03:39that
03:39does anthropic have any sort of equity stake or any sort of uh direct stake in the company beyond
03:44whatever rent payments they've agreed to no okay i also want to talk about uh the other news item from
03:50yesterday in addition to the uh lease signing with anthropic that you also sold your majority stake in the
03:57abernathy joint venture to an investor group led by fluid stack uh your navda profit or rather that
04:05sale going through at 530 million dollars why now and how do you plan to redeploy that cash so a
04:12i think
04:12it was a great transaction for the company um fluid stack always had an option to buy that position
04:17if you recall we were brought into that opportunity by google anthropic and fluid stack after that cake was
04:24partially baked um they wanted our experience as a developer uh in managing procurement and epc companies
04:31um they always had the option to take us out we wanted to make sure we got a superior return
04:36more importantly it's about opportunity cost i mean in that deal we were half uh we weren't leading
04:43the development effort um we didn't own the site uh that site is not scalable because uh all the
04:50electricity at that site has now been taken up so we wanted to take that money and recycle it uh
04:55to
04:56an opportunity where we are dealing direct with our end user customer where we get the highest return
05:01for our shareholders where we control the land control the electricity so it was a great opportunity
05:07for us that came along as we were negotiating uh the lease with anthropic for hawseville and let's also
05:13talk a little bit about the debt markets because tara wolf uh has really helped to open those markets
05:18for uh other companies and i'm curious you know whether the goal here is to get to investment
05:24grade status eventually and how much more money you plan on raising from capital markets sure as i
05:30indicated in this lease we have you know there are provisions and links that mandate we'll have an
05:35investment grade credit uh we're excited about that uh patrick flurry a cfo i think he's led the
05:42leagues here in both transparency and in designing uh what is financeable uh in this space uh i'm sure
05:49we'll do it again uh we'll work with morgan stanley on that we're very excited about it we don't
05:55indicate we don't have any indications that uh we will do any worse than we've done and we're certainly
06:02hoping to do better i mean we're really excited about anthropic uh as an end user customer for that
06:08duration 20 years makes a big difference when you look at the financial model paul really appreciate
06:13you taking time for us we'll catch up soon thank you very much absolutely
