Status as of 6 December 2025
DBRG stock after the spike: where things stand now
DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (NYSE: DBRG) has abruptly moved from niche infrastructure play to M&A headline act.
After news broke on 5 December 2025 that Japan’s SoftBank Group is in talks to acquire DigitalBridge and take it private, DBRG shares exploded higher. The stock jumped about 45% in Friday’s session, closing around $14.12–$14.20 after opening near $9.70, and briefly touched a new 52‑week high near $14.8. [1]
Key trading stats from 5 December:
- Intraday range: roughly $9.65 – $14.84
- 1‑day move: about +45% versus the prior close
- Volume: roughly 56 million shares, vastly above the 30‑day average of ~3.4 million
- 52‑week range: about $6.41 – $14.84 [2]
Technical data provider Intellectia notes DBRG has now logged a 53%+ gain over the last 10 trading days and flags the move as “strongly bullish” in the medium term, but with classic overheating signals: RSI in the mid‑70s, an elevated short‑sale ratio (around 8.5% of volume), and a cluster of both bullish and bearish technical triggers. [3]
Yet even after the spike, Google Finance still shows DigitalBridge trading on very demanding metrics:
- Market cap: ≈ $2.6 billion
- Trailing P/E: around 200x+
- Price‑to‑book: about 1.4x
- Dividend yield: roughly 0.3% [4]
That combination—deal rumors, a violent re‑rating, and lofty valuation multiples—is what investors are now trying to decode.
SoftBank takeover talks: what’s actually been reported
According to Reuters, SoftBank is in discussions to acquire DigitalBridge as part of a push to deepen its exposure to AI‑linked digital infrastructure assets. [5]
Key points from the reporting and follow‑on coverage:
- Deal status: Talks are ongoing; a transaction could be agreed by the end of 2025, but there is no binding agreement and both sides have declined to comment publicly. [6]
- Strategic rationale for SoftBank:
- DigitalBridge manages roughly $108 billion of digital infrastructure assets, including data centers, fiber networks, small cells, towers and edge infrastructure. [7]
- Its portfolio includes platforms such as Vantage Data Centers, Switch, Zayo and AtlasEdge, which sit squarely in the AI and cloud infrastructure value chain. [8]
- SoftBank is already involved in the “Stargate” AI data‑center initiative, a planned multi‑hundred‑billion‑dollar build‑out in partnership with OpenAI, Oracle and others, so acquiring a specialist like DigitalBridge would be strategically consistent. [9]
- Market reaction: Reuters notes DBRG surged as much as 35% intraday on the takeover headlines, reversing what had been a roughly 14% year‑to‑date decline before the news. [10]
In short, the market is suddenly pricing in meaningful M&A optionality on top of DigitalBridge’s existing AI‑infrastructure growth story.
How high could a deal go? Street scenarios from $18 to the mid‑$30s
With no formal offer on the table, the debate has shifted to “what price would make sense?”
Several pieces of sell‑side and research commentary give a rough range:
- Current 12‑month price targets:
- MarketBeat data shows a “Moderate Buy” consensus for DBRG based on 10 analyst ratings, with an average target around the high‑$16s, a low near $12.50 and a street high of $20. [11]
- JPMorgan’s view:
- JPMorgan has reiterated an Overweight rating with a $18 price target after the SoftBank news.
- In a note summarised by Investing.com, the bank suggests a conservative take‑out value around $25 per share based on 2026 estimates, and a $30–$35 range using 2027 projections—multiples they describe as broadly in line with BlackRock’s acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners. [12]
- Higher‑end sale scenarios:
- A short note highlighted by Seeking Alpha indicates some analysts believe DigitalBridge could fetch $25–$35 per share in a sale, implying potential upside of roughly 30–150% versus where the stock closed on 5 December. TechStock²
Crucially, these are valuation scenarios, not offers. They are based on assumptions about fee‑related earnings, carried interest and the value of DigitalBridge’s GP stakes, and they assume SoftBank is willing to pay a premium comparable to other recent infrastructure platform deals.
At the same time, several fundamental data providers—GuruFocus and InvestingPro among them—flag that DBRG already trades at very high P/E and price‑to‑sales multiples, and describe its overall valuation profile as stretched even before factoring in deal speculation. TechStock²+1
Under the headlines: what Q3 2025 results tell us about the business
Beneath the takeover chatter, DigitalBridge’s underlying business has been steadily shifting toward a fee‑based, asset‑light asset‑manager model focused entirely on digital infrastructure.
A summary of Q3 2025 results, based on company disclosures and earnings coverage, looks like this: TechStock²+1
- EPS beat:
- Reported EPS of about $0.12 versus consensus of roughly $0.01, a very large positive surprise.
- Revenue miss (on the Street’s numbers):
- Revenue near $93.5 million versus expectations around $99.2 million (≈6% below).
- Fee economics:
- Fee revenues up roughly 22% year‑over‑year to about $94 million.
- Fee‑related earnings (FRE) up around 43% YoY to the high‑$30 millions.
- Distributable earnings more than doubled (+100%+ YoY).
- Capital formation:
- About $1.6 billion of new capital raised in Q3, bringing year‑to‑date fundraising to roughly $4.1 billion at the time of the release.
Google Finance’s GAAP snapshot shows Q3 net income of around $31 million on reported revenue of just $3.8 million, along with negative EBITDA and free cash flow of roughly ‑$27 million—a reminder that accounting for investment managers can look odd, with fee income, performance fees and investment gains flowing through different lines. [13]
What matters directionally is that:
- Fee‑related earnings and distributable earnings are growing quickly,
- Fundraising remains robust, and
- The firm continues to reposition itself away from legacy, non‑digital assets.
That backdrop helps explain why a strategic buyer interested in AI‑centric infrastructure might be willing to pay up, even if the headline P/E looks extreme.
Big capital to deploy: DigitalBridge Partners III and the AI data‑center build‑out
On 18 November 2025, DigitalBridge announced the close of DigitalBridge Partners III (DBP III), its third value‑add digital infrastructure fund. [14]
Highlights from that announcement:
- Total capital for the strategy:
- Over $7.2 billion of fund commitments
- Plus about $4.5 billion of LP co‑investment commitments
- For a combined $11.7 billion of capital that can be deployed into DBP III’s portfolio.
- LP mix: More than 65% of capital came from existing investors, with new LPs from Asia‑Pacific, Europe and North America.
- Early portfolio: The fund is already invested in platforms such as Vantage Data Centers North America, Yondr Group, Orange Barrel Media, FiberNow and JTOWER, all of which tie directly into towers, fiber and hyperscale data centers.
DigitalBridge itself now manages roughly $108 billion in digital infrastructure assets across strategies, up from earlier years of the turnaround, cementing its role as a specialist manager in what many investors see as one of the core beneficiaries of the AI capex cycle. [15]
Strategic moves in 2025: Digita sale, Korean AI push and Stargate
1. Selling Digita Group to GI Partners
In late November and early December 2025, DigitalBridge agreed to sell Digita Group—a Nordic tower and broadcast infrastructure company operating in Finland and Iceland—to private investment firm GI Partners. [16]
Key elements of the Digita deal:
- DigitalBridge‑managed funds have owned Digita since 2018.
- Under DigitalBridge’s ownership, Digita expanded from roughly 200 tower sites to more than 950, while building out data‑center and IoT capabilities. [17]
- Digita will continue to operate as an independent company within GI Partners’ portfolio.
- The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2026, subject to customary approvals. [18]
This fits DigitalBridge’s “acquire, scale, exit” playbook: crystallise value in a mature tower platform and recycle capital into higher‑growth AI‑data‑center and edge‑compute opportunities.
2. Strategic MOU with KT Corporation for Korean AI data centers
On 26 November 2025, DigitalBridge announced a Memorandum of Understanding with KT Corporation, one of South Korea’s leading telecom operators, to co‑develop next‑generation AI data centers in Korea. [19]
According to the company and subsequent coverage:
- It is DigitalBridge’s first collaboration with a major Korean telco.
- The partners plan to explore “AI factory”‑style data centers that could scale to gigawatt‑level power capacity—think multi‑billion‑dollar projects dedicated to AI and cloud workloads. [20]
- The move strengthens DigitalBridge’s presence in Asia just as South Korea is aligning itself with global AI infrastructure initiatives, including participation in the UAE‑backed Stargate AI data‑center project. [21]
The market initially reacted positively: a Simply Wall St piece noted DBRG rose about 5.9% on the KT news and framed the partnership as an important step in DigitalBridge’s AI data‑center narrative. [22]
3. Exposure to OpenAI’s Stargate via Vantage Data Centers
DigitalBridge’s portfolio exposure to Vantage Data Centers also ties it indirectly into OpenAI’s enormous Stargate AI data‑center plan.
On 22 October 2025, Vantage, OpenAI and Oracle announced a new “Lighthouse” hyperscale campus in Port Washington, Wisconsin, part of Stargate’s expansion: [23]
- Planned investment: $15+ billion for the Wisconsin site alone.
- Capacity: roughly one gigawatt of AI compute capacity across four data centers.
- Energy profile: designed around zero‑emission energy, water‑positive operations and LEED certification.
- Vantage notes that its largest investors in North America are DigitalBridge and Silver Lake, underlining the importance of DBRG’s stake.
Taken together—the Digita sale, KT MOU, DBP III capital pool and the Stargate‑linked expansion—DigitalBridge is clearly repositioning around AI‑driven, hyperscale data‑center platforms at global scale.
Valuation and fundamentals: is the rally ahead of itself?
The post‑softbank spike has forced a re‑examination of DBRG’s valuation.
Simply Wall St: “overvalued by ~156%”
A fresh 6 December 2025 analysis from Simply Wall St asks whether DigitalBridge’s recent 45% surge has outrun its fundamentals. [24]
Highlights from that piece:
- Over the last 7 days, the stock has jumped ≈45%, and about 21% over the past month, leaving it 27% up year‑to‑date—but the 5‑year return is a more modest ~25%, signalling a bumpy long‑term journey.
- On Simply Wall St’s valuation checks, DigitalBridge scores 1 out of 6, meaning it screens as attractive on only one valuation axis.
- Their Excess Returns model—comparing projected returns on equity to investors’ required return—suggests DBRG might be roughly 156% overvalued relative to their estimate of intrinsic value.
- The stock’s P/E multiple around 126x is far above both the capital‑markets industry average (~24x) and a peer group closer to 13x. A “fair” multiple, after adjusting for growth and risk, is estimated closer to 30x.
In other words, on classic fundamental metrics, the recent move has pushed DBRG into “priced for perfection” territory unless a takeover materialises at a premium.
Quant and technical models: AI says “high risk”
Intellectia’s AI‑driven forecast, which looks for stocks with similar historical price patterns, is even more cautious: [25]
- Its algorithm projects DBRG’s 1‑month price around $5.84, implying a ~40% decline from current levels, based on similarity to other past price trajectories.
- For 2026, the model generates an average price range roughly between $3–$7 per share, with negative expected returns in most months.
That model is purely statistical and does not “understand” takeover scenarios, but it’s a reminder that parabolic rallies in small‑ and mid‑cap names with high short interest often see violent pullbacks when sentiment shifts.
Street consensus vs. deal optionality
Putting the pieces together:
- Analyst recommendations:
- MarketBeat aggregates a “Moderate Buy” consensus, with most analysts rating DBRG as Buy or Strong Buy, one Sell, and several Holds. [26]
- Average price target:
- Around the mid‑ to high‑$16s, which is above the current price, but not by an enormous margin after Friday’s move. [27]
- Strategic sale scenarios:
- JPMorgan and other commentators see potential deal values in the $25–$35 band, implying substantial upside if SoftBank (or another buyer) is willing to pay private‑equity‑style multiples for a scaled AI‑infrastructure platform. [28]
- Fundamental checks:
- Independent valuation frameworks like Simply Wall St’s and GuruFocus’s various scores flag high multiples, negative free cash flow, and modest underlying profitability once you strip away fair‑value gains and deal excitement. [29]
So DBRG is now trading at the intersection of two narratives:
- M&A optionality + AI infrastructure scarcity
- A still‑leveraged, asset‑manager business with lumpy earnings and a valuation multiple that leaves little room for disappointment
Which narrative dominates will depend heavily on what SoftBank ultimately decides to do.
Key risks to watch
For investors tracking DBRG from here, several risks stand out:
- Deal risk:
- Talks with SoftBank could stall, leak, or collapse, as many high‑profile M&A discussions do. If that happens, some or all of the “takeover premium” embedded in the price could unwind quickly.
- Valuation compression:
- Even if the business continues to execute, a triple‑digit P/E and very high price‑to‑sales ratio leave DBRG vulnerable to any shift in market sentiment toward high‑multiple infrastructure and AI themes.
- Financing and capex demands:
- JPMorgan highlights that DigitalBridge’s ecosystem is sitting on roughly 5.4 GW of data‑center capacity built or under construction, with 2.6 GW of leasing signed in Q3 2025—capacity that requires billions of dollars of additional capex. SoftBank’s deep pockets could help; without a partner, funding that growth at attractive terms could be harder. [30]
- Execution in new markets:
- Projects like the KT partnership in Korea and Vantage’s Lighthouse campus in Wisconsin involve long development cycles, regulatory complexity and execution risk. Slippage there could alter the growth trajectory investors are currently baking in.
- Macro and rate environment:
- Digital infrastructure is relatively resilient, but returns are sensitive to interest rates, credit spreads and power prices. Any renewed rise in funding costs can weigh on valuations for highly capital‑intensive platforms.
Bottom line: DBRG is now a high‑beta bet on both AI infrastructure and M&A
As of 6 December 2025, DigitalBridge has gone from being a specialist digital‑infrastructure asset manager quietly compounding fee income to a front‑page takeover candidate at the heart of the global AI build‑out.
- The SoftBank talks and associated Street scenarios (from the high‑teens to the mid‑$30s per share) give the stock substantial upside if a deal is announced at the rich multiples analysts are modeling. [31]
- The fundamental picture—strong fee growth, big new funds like DBP III, and strategic moves such as the Digita sale and KT AI partnership—provides a real business story behind the hype. [32]
- At the same time, valuation checks and AI‑driven quant models are flashing caution, pointing to stretched multiples and the potential for sharp reversals if either deal hopes fade or AI‑infrastructure enthusiasm cools. [33]
For now, DBRG looks less like a classic value idea and more like a high‑beta, event‑driven way to express a view on AI data‑center infrastructure and SoftBank’s next strategic move. Anyone considering the stock needs to be comfortable with both sides of that coin: significant upside if the narrative plays out, and equally significant downside if it doesn’t.
References
1. www.google.com, 2. www.google.com, 3. intellectia.ai, 4. www.google.com, 5. www.reuters.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. www.google.com, 8. www.reuters.com, 9. www.reuters.com, 10. www.reuters.com, 11. www.marketbeat.com, 12. in.investing.com, 13. www.google.com, 14. www.digitalbridge.com, 15. www.digitalbridge.com, 16. www.prnewswire.com, 17. www.prnewswire.com, 18. www.gipartners.com, 19. www.digitalbridge.com, 20. www.digitalbridge.com, 21. www.reuters.com, 22. simplywall.st, 23. www.digitalbridge.com, 24. simplywall.st, 25. intellectia.ai, 26. www.marketbeat.com, 27. www.marketbeat.com, 28. in.investing.com, 29. simplywall.st, 30. in.investing.com, 31. www.reuters.com, 32. www.digitalbridge.com, 33. simplywall.st
