Vertiv Stock Soars on AI Data Center Deals, Dividend Hike and S&P 500 Inclusion

On November 30, 2025, Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE: VRT) — the publicly traded parent of Vertiv Holdings, LLC — is trading just below record highs after a powerful November rebound driven by a big third‑quarter earnings beat, a higher 2025 outlook, a dividend increase and a flurry of AI‑focused strategic deals. ^[1]

As of the close on Friday, November 28, Vertiv stock finished at $179.73, up about 4.5% on the day and roughly 12.5% for the week, implying a market value in the mid‑$60 billion range. That Friday close was not far from the stock’s all‑time high around $199 reached in late October. ^[2]

The rally caps a remarkable run for Vertiv, which debuted on the Fortune 500 in 2025 and has become a high‑profile way to play the AI data‑center build‑out, thanks to its power and cooling gear, Nvidia partnership and recent inclusion in the S&P 500. ^[3]

Below is a breakdown of the latest Vertiv stock news as of November 30, 2025, and what it may mean for investors following VRT.

Q3 2025: AI demand drives blockbuster growth and higher guidance

Vertiv’s latest leg up is rooted in third‑quarter 2025 results, reported on October 22:

Net sales: about $2.68 billion, up 29% year over year, with especially strong growth in the Americas (+43%) and Asia‑Pacific (+20%). ^[4]
Organic orders: up roughly 60% versus the prior‑year quarter, and about 20% sequentially from Q2, underscoring the strength of the order pipeline. ^[5]
Profitability: operating profit climbed to roughly $517 million, with adjusted operating margin reaching 22.3%, up 220 basis points year over year and 380 bps sequentially. ^[6]
EPS: diluted EPS came in around $1.02, with adjusted EPS of $1.24, up more than 60% from a year earlier and comfortably ahead of analyst expectations near $0.99. ^[7]

On the back of that momentum, Vertiv raised its full‑year 2025 guidance across the board:

Net sales now targeted at $10.16–$10.24 billion, implying 26–28% organic growth.
Adjusted operating profit guided to $2.04–$2.08 billion, with margins expected around 20–20.5%.
Adjusted EPS increased to a range of $4.07–$4.13 (up from prior guidance around $3.80). ^[8]

For Q4 2025 alone, the company is guiding to net sales of roughly $2.81–$2.89 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.23–$1.29, suggesting that management sees little near‑term slowdown in AI‑driven demand for power and cooling. ^[9]

Despite these strong fundamentals, Vertiv shares actually slipped briefly on the earnings day as some investors focused on high valuation and profit‑taking — an early sign that expectations are now elevated. ^[10]

Big November moves: PurgeRite deal and Caterpillar alliance

$1 billion PurgeRite acquisition to deepen liquid‑cooling services

On November 3, 2025, Vertiv announced it would acquire PurgeRite Intermediate for about $1 billion from private‑equity owner Milton Street Capital. ^[11]

PurgeRite specializes in mechanical flushing, purging and filtration services for HVAC systems at data centers and industrial sites — essentially the plumbing and cleaning work that keeps complex liquid‑cooling loops reliable over time. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2025 and is explicitly framed as a way to boost Vertiv’s liquid‑cooling portfolio as AI data centers push power density and heat loads higher. ^[12]

Reuters reported that Vertiv shares rose about 1.5% on the announcement, even as rival Eaton simultaneously unveiled a $9.5 billion acquisition of Boyd Corporation’s thermal business — highlighting how data‑center cooling has become a strategic battleground among power‑equipment giants. ^[13]

Caterpillar partnership: “grid‑to‑chip” energy optimization for AI

On November 18, 2025, Vertiv and Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) announced a wide‑ranging energy‑optimization collaboration aimed at AI‑scale data centers. ^[14]

The partnership integrates:

Vertiv’s power distribution and thermal‑management portfolio
Caterpillar’s on‑site power generation, including gas and turbine solutions and combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP) systems

The goal is to deliver pre‑designed, modular “bring‑your‑own‑power‑and‑cooling” architectures that can shorten deployment times, improve efficiency and reduce grid strain for multi‑megawatt AI campuses. ^[15]

This collaboration comes as many AI projects confront grid and permitting bottlenecks; on‑site generation and integrated cooling are increasingly seen as ways to keep the AI build‑out on schedule. ^[16]

Nuclear‑powered data centers: Oklo partnership

Earlier in 2025, Vertiv also teamed up with Oklo, a small‑modular‑reactor (SMR) company backed by Sam Altman, to explore using compact nuclear plants as a co‑located power and heat source for AI data centers. A pilot project is planned at Oklo’s Aurora facility at Idaho National Laboratory, with Vertiv providing integrated power and cooling systems. ^[17]

Taken together — PurgeRite, Caterpillar and Oklo — Vertiv is positioning itself not just as a rack‑cooling vendor, but as part of an end‑to‑end energy and thermal stack for high‑density AI infrastructure.

New products and contracts: immersion cooling and Digital Realty’s ROM1

CoolCenter Immersion: Vertiv doubles down on liquid cooling

On November 6, 2025, Vertiv launched Vertiv™ CoolCenter Immersion, a new immersion‑cooling system for AI and high‑performance computing (HPC) workloads, initially available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). ^[18]

Key details from Vertiv’s release and follow‑up coverage:

CoolCenter pods support 25–240 kW per system, targeting very dense AI clusters.
Servers are fully submerged in a dielectric (non‑conductive) fluid, allowing highly efficient heat removal where air cooling hits its limits.
The system is designed as a complete architecture, connecting to building recooling systems and enabling potential heat‑reuse schemes. ^[19]

This launch extends Vertiv’s existing liquid‑cooling lineup and is clearly aimed at hyperscalers and colocation providers racing to support high‑wattage GPUs.

Digital Realty’s ROM1 campus in Italy

On November 11, 2025, Vertiv announced that it has been selected to provide AI‑ready power and cooling infrastructure for ROM1, Digital Realty’s first data‑center campus in Italy, located in Rome. ^[20]

According to Vertiv and data‑center industry coverage:

ROM1 will be a carrier‑neutral site with planned capacity above 3 megawatts in its initial phase, designed specifically for HPC and AI workloads.
The campus will link Rome into Mediterranean fiber and subsea‑cable routes and is expected to begin operations around 2027.
The deal extends Vertiv’s long‑standing relationship with Digital Realty across other European hubs like Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam. ^[21]

Combined with CoolCenter, ROM1 underscores how Vertiv is trying to own both the technology (liquid cooling) and the reference deployments that large operators look at when picking infrastructure vendors.

Dividend hike, S&P 500 status and institutional buying

Dividend increase: modest yield, strong signal

Vertiv sweetened its capital‑return story in November by raising its quarterly dividend from $0.04 to $0.0625 per share. On an annualized basis, that’s $0.25 per share, translating to a yield of roughly 0.1% at recent prices. ^[22]

The payout ratio remains low — roughly 4–10% of earnings depending on the metric — signalling that Vertiv still intends to reinvest most of its cash into growth, M&A and balance‑sheet strength rather than become an income stock. ^[23]

Index inclusion: Vertiv joins the S&P 500

Recent coverage notes that Vertiv has been added to the S&P 500 Composite, a milestone that typically increases passive demand for a stock as index funds and ETFs adjust their holdings. ^[24]

That index promotion came after Vertiv’s market cap surged past $60 billion and it debuted on the Fortune 500 list in 2025. ^[25]

Institutional ownership and insider activity

MarketBeat and related filings show that Vertiv is now heavily institution‑owned — close to 90% of shares are in the hands of funds and other professional investors — with multiple firms increasing their positions through 2025. ^[26]

Examples:

Choreo LLC boosted its Vertiv stake by about 61% in Q2, while
J.W. Cole Advisors and several smaller managers also added shares, often citing AI‑infrastructure tailwinds and raised guidance. ^[27]

At the same time, there has been notable insider selling (including a director and an EVP trimming positions near recent highs), which some analysts flag as worth monitoring, though not necessarily thesis‑breaking given the massive share‑price run‑up. ^[28]

How Wall Street values Vertiv stock right now

Analyst ratings and price targets

As of late November 2025, aggregated data show:

2 “Strong Buy”, 21 “Buy”, 5 “Hold” and 1 “Sell” ratings
A consensus rating of “Moderate Buy”
An average 12‑month price target around $177.81, with high targets above $200 and low targets near $110–120. ^[29]

Several banks, including Deutsche Bank, UBS and Mizuho, have raised targets into the $198–$216 range since Vertiv’s Q3 print, citing stronger‑than‑expected margins and sustained AI demand. ^[30]

Valuation: expensive… or still undervalued?

By most traditional metrics, Vertiv is not a cheap stock:

Recent reports put its P/E ratio in the mid‑60s to high‑70s, well above both its own historical averages and the broader industrials and electrical‑equipment sector. ^[31]
Price‑to‑sales and PEG ratios are also elevated, reflecting expectations for sustained double‑digit growth. ^[32]

However, valuation models don’t all agree:

A detailed discounted cash‑flow (DCF) analysis from Simply Wall St estimates Vertiv’s intrinsic value around $215.55 per share, implying roughly 16–17% upside from recent market prices if the company hits long‑term free‑cash‑flow forecasts that grow from about $1.36 billion today to over $4 billion by 2029. ^[33]
The same analysis notes Vertiv trades at a P/E of about 66x versus an industry average near 31x, but argues that given Vertiv’s growth profile and sector leadership, that premium may be “about right” rather than wildly excessive. ^[34]

Meanwhile, GuruFocus and other fundamental screens highlight a robust balance sheet, expanding margins and strong free cash flow, but warn that valuation multiples and recent insider selling leave less margin of safety than a year ago. ^[35]

In short, the market is paying a growth‑stock multiple for what is still technically an industrial company — and that multiple assumes Vertiv continues to execute almost flawlessly.

Remember the downside: volatility and AI‑spending risk

Vertiv’s 2025 success story has had some sharp drawdowns along the way, underscoring the risks investors are still watching.

Earlier in the year:

In February 2025, Vertiv stock dropped nearly 10% in a single session after the company issued softer‑than‑expected near‑term EPS guidance, even though it beat Q4 2024 estimates and reported 26% revenue growth. Concerns centered on whether AI data‑center demand might cool and how new U.S. policy shifts could affect profitability. ^[36]
In March 2025, the shares fell roughly 11% after Barclays cut its price target from $111 to $100 and warned Vertiv could be “vulnerable to any hint” of slower hyperscale data‑center capex from 2026 onward — despite still acknowledging strong growth prospects in 2025. ^[37]

More recent analysis from TS2.Tech and others flags several ongoing risks:

Rich valuation / multiple compression
With the stock up many times over the past few years and trading on a high‑60s earnings multiple, any slowdown in orders, margins or AI hype could trigger another sharp pullback even if the business remains fundamentally healthy. TS2 Tech+1
Dependence on AI‑driven data‑center capex
Vertiv’s order boom is tightly linked to hyperscale and cloud providers’ AI spending. If those budgets plateau — whether because of macro conditions, policy, or simply more efficient chips and cooling — Vertiv’s growth rate could normalise quickly. ^[38]
Acquisition and integration risk
Deals such as PurgeRite and prior acquisitions in racks and thermal management broaden Vertiv’s moat but also introduce integration complexity, cultural challenges and execution risk over the next 1–2 years. ^[39]
Intensifying competition
Rivals like Eaton and Schneider Electric are also buying thermal businesses and rolling out combined power‑and‑cooling packages, seeking their own grid‑to‑chip stories. ^[40]
Power‑system and policy constraints
AI campuses face real‑world limits around grid capacity, permitting and local opposition; Vertiv’s collaborations with Caterpillar and Oklo are partly aimed at solving those constraints, but progress depends on regulators and long project timelines. ^[41]

So, is Vertiv (VRT) still attractive after the latest surge?

Putting it all together as of November 30, 2025:

Business fundamentals look unusually strong for an industrial name: ~30% revenue growth, expanding margins above 20%, rising free cash flow and upgraded full‑year guidance all point to real operating leverage from the AI data‑center cycle. ^[42]
Strategic positioning keeps improving: new immersion‑cooling products, the Digital Realty ROM1 win, the $1 billion PurgeRite deal and the Caterpillar energy‑optimization alliance all tilt Vertiv further toward AI‑dense, high‑value deployments. ^[43]
Market perception is broadly bullish but not unanimous: the stock carries a “Moderate Buy” consensus and a price‑target range that still allows upside from current levels, yet several research notes emphasise that the easy money may have been made and that volatility remains likely. ^[44]

For long‑term investors who believe AI data‑center capex will remain structurally elevated through the late 2020s — and who can tolerate swings tied to macro headlines and analyst downgrades — Vertiv remains one of the purest listed plays on AI infrastructure, spanning power, cooling, racks and lifecycle services.

For more valuation‑sensitive or risk‑averse investors, the stock’s current multiple and recent vertical move may argue for patience and a focus on pullbacks or periods of sentiment fatigue rather than chasing fresh highs.

Either way, the story going into 2026 is clear: Vertiv is no longer a sleepy power‑equipment supplier; it is now a core node in the global AI compute supply chain — and its stock trades accordingly.

VRT STOCK (Vertiv): One of The Best AI Infrastructure Companies in the World