Equinix's record quarter ran on $3.8 billion of new debt and a $2 billion stock shelf
Record bookings and a third guidance raise, but the build ran on $3.8 billion of new debt and a $2 billion share-sale shelf filed an hour after results. Who pays if the build outruns the bookings.
Richard Tang · 2 min read
Equinix−1.84% — Equinix, down 1.84 percent today just posted its best quarter in years and it did it on borrowed money. Revenue rose 11% to $2.57 billion, gross bookings hit a record $533 million, and cash earnings per share grew 18% 1. Behind that, the data-center landlord spent more than its business generated, added $3.8 billion of debt, and filed the paperwork to sell up to $2 billion of stock an hour after the results came out 1. BMO raised its price target to $1,250 on November 2 5. The next thing to watch is not the target. It is whether that shelf gets used, because whoever buys the stock is the one paying for the build.
The quarter itself was strong. Recurring revenue, the monthly fees for space and power, rose 10% to $2.44 billion, and Equinix raised its full-year guidance for the third quarter in a row 12.
The funding gap the record quarter hides
Net income rose 31% to $489 million, but $54 million of that was a one-off fee from the atNorth joint venture, where Equinix paid $869 million for about a third of a Nordic data-center operator whose preference shares carry a 12% cumulative dividend 14.
The build is the cost. In nine months Equinix generated $3.03 billion of operating cash but spent $4.39 billion on property and equipment plus $1.55 billion of dividends, leaving free cash flow at minus $801 million 1.
Equinix spent more on capex than it generated in cash for nine months
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Operating cash flow | 3.03 |
| Capex | 4.39 |
| Dividends paid | 1.55 |
| Free cash flow | -0.8 |
Free cash flow has been negative in six of the last eight quarters
Data
| Free cash flow | |
|---|---|
| Q4 '24 | -$0.06B |
| Q1 '25 | $0.04B |
| Q2 '25 | -$0.13B |
| Q3 '25 | -$0.41B |
| Q4 '25 | -$0.9B |
| Q1 '26 | -$0.66B |
| Q2 '26 | -$0.61B |
| Q3 '26 | -$0.33B |
Debt principal is now $25.2 billion, up from $21.4 billion at the end of 2025, after three senior-note sales raised $5.4 billion net 1. Debt cannot carry this pace forever.
Who pays is on the shelf, not in the guidance
The equity program, filed on October 28, allows up to $2 billion of share sales and has sold nothing in 2026 1. When it is tapped, the trade only works if per-share cash earnings keep growing faster than the share count. So far they do: 12% normalized growth against a share count that has not moved 1.
The bulls argue barriers to new data-center projects make Equinix's powered capacity scarcer and more valuable 5, and record bookings support that. The discipline to prove it is in the funding line, not the guidance.
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