Keel Infrastructure - CEO, Ben Gagnon Q&A - Q1 Earnings & Deal Timing!

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Hey guys, welcome or welcome back to the channel McDalley Money, the official home of power analysis.
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In today's episode, Anthony Power and I are pleased to welcome Ben Ganyon back to the program.
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He's the CEO at Kiel Infrastructure, reporting Q1 earnings for the first time under the new rebranded company name.
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We've got a lot to talk about.
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Before we get into it, take a second, smash the like button, guys.
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Big help to myself and the channel.
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If you're not already subscribed, McNally Money, feel free to join and let us know in the comments section below what you thought of the earnings call from Kiel and if you're currently holding shares.
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With that being said, let's get into today's interview.
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All right, guys, away we go.
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A highly anticipated interview today.
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None other than Ben Ganyon back on the program, CEO of Kiel Infrastructure, reporting earnings for the first time under the newly rebranded name.
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Some big announcements on the earnings call.
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Privileged to have you on the channel.
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Always good to be on, guys.
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Happy to get into it.
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Yeah, let's get into it here.
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Now, the main highlights from Q1.
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You walked through really the thesis behind BitFarms now, Keel, the fact that execution is at the core.
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You talked about some of the key things your team has promised and delivered on uh coming into Q1 here, not to mention some of the go forward aspirations.
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Yeah, I think the big thing to take out of the Q1 call is that, you know, we have executed against everything that we said that we were going to do, you know, for the last year and change.
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Um, you know, and this wasn't, you know, easy work to do things like completely exit out of multiple countries in Latin America and to re-domicile from Canada to the US or to do a full rebrand or close on one of the largest, you know, public MA deals in our industry space with the closing of Stronghold.
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I mean, we did a lot of fantastic work.
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We executed against exactly what we said we were going to do.
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And we're really proud about all of that.
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And I think when you look forward, you know, what that means is that we've created the foundation to have a fantastic 2026 and a fantastic 2027 because, you know, we how have so many things that are coming into view and they're getting so close and they're getting so clear.
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Um, you know, a lot of companies have a tremendous amount of success in the rear view, but for Keel, everything is in the front view.
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And, you know, we look really forward to executing across the three sites uh that we mentioned Panther Creek Sharon and Moses Lake, uh, executing or across the remaining permits that we need to do over the next couple of months and lease execution and ultimately uh start constructing the site later on this year.
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So we're really excited about it.
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Um we think we've got a tremendous amount of uh great opportunities to create value for shareholders this year.
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And we look really forward to executing on this foundation that we've we've built over the last year and change.
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Now, one of the things that uh, and we Bryce and myself, we listened to most of the 10 uh presentations from those companies who've provided their earnings over the last sort of two weeks.
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Um, it's become obvious that a lot of the earnings didn't actually include anything regarding to their current uh business model in terms of mining.
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You're one of the probably the OGs in the mining space, you know, you were you were the uh chief mining officer before you were CEO, and one of the first to come out as a CEO and said state that you're you're not going to follow that strategy forever and you were looking to direct your power.
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Why is it um why has it been such a challenge for the public miners?
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We haven't seen the global hash rate change as much, but the public miners in North America, even what we would probably say six, seven, eight months ago, the true blue uh pure play miners are now literally moving towards HBC.
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What's been the real reason for that?
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Well, I think you know, the reality is that uh when you look around at what these public mining companies did, was they built up these really small portfolios of large sites.
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And, you know, at the time, that made a tremendous amount of sense to just have economy of scale at a Bitcoin mining site, simplify your operations, keep it tight, keep it lean, get those economies scale, and try and, you know, do your energy arbitrary trading.
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That was the whole framework.
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When you look around at the traditional data center industry, they've built the complete opposite kind of portfolio.
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They built very large portfolios of very small sites.
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And so, you know, when it came into uh this HPC and AI uh kind of deluge of demand and this this huge wave uh that's taking place, all of a sudden the the desired campus profile for a data center changed materially overnight.
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Um the scale had to go up by you know many, many multiples.
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Um you had to have way higher energy density, you had to have air liquid cooling, you had all to have all these different things.
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And so, you know, it takes uh a lot of companies a lot of time to figure out the difference in the infrastructure and the difference in the technology and the difference in the engineering and the requirements and everything else.
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Because with Bitcoin mining, really it's you know, you just have to make it work and you want to make it work for the lowest possible cost.
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And in HPC, it's it's almost the opposite.
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And so it's you know, it's not only you have to make it work, it's you have to make it work and avoid every possible remotely, you know, rare scenario that you can imagine.
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You know, you've got to put in contingency plans for earthquakes and asteroid strikes and flooding and all these different things you would never consider as a Bitcoin miner.
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So I think two things really happened.
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I think you had a huge uh jump, right?
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Everything was completely different between building a Bitcoin mine and building an HPC uh an AI data center.
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I think it takes a lot of time to build up that level of understanding.
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Um, and then I think it also takes uh the the traditional industry a lot of time to realize that you know the infrastructure and the portfolios that they built are no longer the portfolios that are gonna serve the compute needs of the future.
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And, you know, how do you actually solve that problem?
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Because I don't think that any company, you know,'s first initial thought was, let's go reach out to, you know, a Bitcoin mining company because they're really gonna be the path forward.
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I think the reality is that they didn't have the foresight onto what was happening with HPC and AI to go out and procure these large-scale sites.
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And it was only the Bitcoin miners who really had them then turnkey.
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So there's a lot of learning that had to take place, not only on the technical side of what goes into one of these data centers, but on the business side of how do you work with these companies and how do they work with you?
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Um, because they they really, you know, I don't think that was their first choice was to go and work out with a company like this, but they're solutions-oriented.
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Companies like Keel are solutions-oriented, and you know, we're gonna this whole opportunity exists because we're creating a lot of value for these potential tenants by solving their problems.
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Hey, now you've talked about Q1 really being this inflection point on the call uh between the old business and the new.
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We saw that in Anthony's first question there.
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Can you talk to us about the key metrics?
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You committed to three leases by year end.
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We'll talk about that a little bit later.
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Are you looking at it by a number of megawatts leased, critical IT, number of leases in hands, value per megawatt?
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What are kind of the key metrics we should be watching through Q2, Q3 and the remainder of the year?
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Yeah, so the big ones to watch out for um obviously are gonna be continued execution across permits, lease execution, and increasing our secured capacity of megawatts.
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Those are gonna be the three things that are gonna be real big value drivers, we believe, for 2026.
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Um, we have this in our investor deck for Q1.
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It's on slide nine.
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It's it we had a similar slide on slide seven in our Q4 deck, um, which kind of outlines why we believe those are the big value drivers, what it looks like from our peer groups, and kind of how we think you know we are being properly valued as a business today.
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And I think if you look around at the industry and you look around at Keel specifically, we're probably being valued on the 2027 secured megawatts that we have and as a Bitcoin miner.
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I don't believe that we're prov getting you know little or any value for our ability to get these leases or get these sites permitted, get them leased out, deliver the megawatts, or secure additional megawatt capacity.
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I think we're being valued like a 2027 Bitcoin miner.
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And, you know, so we're uh a show me story like a lot of other players in the industry who haven't yet signed leases are are show me stories.
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But I think what that means for investors is look, a lot of companies have that show me in their rear view, which is great.
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They've had huge, you know, uh re-ratings on their stock and huge increases in their share price and in their market caps.
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But for us, none of that's been priced in.
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And, you know, we believe that as we execute this year across, you know, one lease, it should be a big re-rating, but so should a second and show sort of third.
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And so it's not just that we've got one of these opportunities in front of us, we have three.
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It's not that we have one that's near-term high probability, it's that we have three.
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And so there's so many different opportunities coming forward for us uh as a business.
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And, you know, if investors are looking around the space, you know, trying to understand what's the right opportunities for them, you know, it's not on us really, I think, to convince them around HPC and AI infrastructure being a good investment.
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I think anyone who's looking at Keel stock today has already made up their minds around HPC and AI infrastructure.
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Now the question for them is, you know, why Keel over Cypher or Applied or Iron or, you know, any other name uh in the space, including Nebius or Core Weave or or what have you.
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I think, you know, the answer is like you should be looking at the you know, peers who have already executed and are further along in their transition and what those milestones meant for shareholders, for share price, for market cap, for confidence in the team and their ability to deliver.
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And you should look at what we have uh ahead of us and what we're executing against.
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And, you know, you should see what we see in terms of our optimism for the sites that we have, the development that we have, and the upside that we have in our shares.
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So it's permits, lease execution, and securing more megawatts.
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Um, we think each one of those, every time that we do it, is gonna be a big value driver.
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And just a quick follow-up there, Ben, from an investment perspective, you talk about that pre-re-rate opportunity.
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From a client perspective, we've seen a lot of your peers, to Anthony's point, pivot towards HPC AI.
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You just mentioned Keel is a show me story at this point.
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What separates you guys on the client side in terms of attracting these contracts from some of your peers?
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I mean, it's location, location, location, uh, for the most part.
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Um, you know, I think a lot of people have really forgotten how important location is in the data center space.
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This is a real estate industry historically, um, and location has been a hugely important factor.
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There's a reason why data center alley exists, right, and why the clustering took place.
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There is a reason why Quincy Washington exists and why the clustering took place.
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Location does matter.
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And I think when the energy scarcity bottleneck is so tight and the pressures uh, you know, publicly and from investors to go out there and participate in training a new model and being a leader in training these models is so high, people will overlook what was traditionally the you know more important features around location for solving the energy question.
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But the reality is that uh none of these companies are being paid to train their models.
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Training a model is a cash-burning exercise, right?
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It's it's it's an RD expense that you're using to build a large language model that you can then sell, rent, lease, however you want to refer to it, uh, you can monetize it through inference.
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And when you look at the leases that have been signed, I think they've largely been signed for training.
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And if you look at where companies make money, it's on inference.
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And so the logical result of that dynamic is that inference should gain tremendous market share over training, because if it doesn't, how can any of these companies make money?
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And when inference is the largest uh demand on the data center side, the location will matter again.
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Um, and so our sites being two hours outside of you know New York or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and close to Cleveland and close to Montreal and close to Seattle and Portland, those are inference sites.
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Those are sites that are best suited to serve the market demand that will actually make companies money and where all of this demand is going to come in the future.
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So we think we're very well positioned.
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We think that location has tremendous long-term staying power uh and and value associated with it.
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And you know, the the reality is that being in those locations is just frankly, it's it's harder to execute in those locations that are valuable than in a lot of the locations that are are less valuable.
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Um and so, you know, the the lessons that we've learned, the competencies that we've developed, the team that we've built around permitting in Pennsylvania and Washington, all these other areas, they're gonna be able to go out and repeat the process over and over again.
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I think the, you know, the teams that are focused on in Texas, where Texas has had, you know, the easiest path for uh power land and permits in the country, bar none other.
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You know, if you're taking that team and applying it to Pennsylvania, you there's gonna be a learning curve.
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Like you're gonna have to relearn all of these processes.
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You're probably gonna have to hire new people across your permitting team because a lot of it needs to have local expertise and local knowledge that you wouldn't have from your Texas team.
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So I think the location is the big one.
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And then I think the the second thing is is just kind of process on how we approach development.
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You know, the big one lately has just been all the headline articles around community pushback, right?
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It's 50% of data centers in the United States are are canceled or delayed, um, is is kind of what the recent headlines have been.
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And I think back to the Pittsburgh Data Center and Energy Innovation Summit last year.
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That was you know, huge fanfare.
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You have President Trump with uh Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro and Senator McCormick and Senator Fetterman and local state senators and state representatives, and you have you know heads of Google and Microsoft and AWS there.
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They announced, I think, 60 gigawatts of data center projects, and I don't believe a single one of them has broken ground.
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Right.
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So, you know, there's a huge demand for this stuff, but it's you know, when the megawatts hit the mud, executing is is a whole you know another battle that you've you've got to be able to deliver on.
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And um, we've done uh really, really good work across PA.
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Uh, I think the fact that our our three sites, Panther, Sharon, and and Moses, have all cleared zoning, is a testament to that because that is the piece of the permitting that tends to be the most uh political, the most uh community oriented, and the most emotional.
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That's the part where people stand up in town halls and you know state their their view on things and state their concerns, and that's where things were that's the area where communities can really get things shut down.
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Um the fact that we've cleared at all three sites is uh I think a testament to how we approach development and how we approach stakeholder relations and community engagement.
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And that's that's paying a lot of dividends for us in these developments.
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Now, one of the questions that uh retail and institutional um companies are sort of like uh asking CEOs of companies like Keel and the rest of those companies moving into this space is when deal.
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And um, you know, I'm sure for many, many months you've been like trying to come up with the right answer in terms of giving them a little bit of pushback and saying we're we're going through a process.
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One thing you've been, Ben, is been extremely transparent about the process and not just a case of we've got a 200 megawatt site, uh, it's going to be you know energized shortly and we'll have a client you know in the very near future.
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However, this earnings call, you went one stage through.
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I think you took a leaf out of um Tyler Page's playbook because in September last year, when he was at one of the conferences we attended, um he came back and said, Well, we'll get a deal by the end of the year, and you know, that's on the record.
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You've come on the record and said, Not one deal, we're gonna have three deals by the end of the year.
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In terms of that, that um that area of the zoning, permitting, environmental studies, power, um, getting the power to the right levels for those sites.
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Um, are there any potential risks of not achieving those three deals by the end of the year?
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I there's there's always risks, Anthony, right?
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There's going to be risks all the way through permitting, through construction.
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And when the site's operational, there's going to be continued risk because these are industrial facilities.
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You know, the the good thing is we know how to manage risks and we know how to, you know, take risks that are necessary and avoid risks that are unnecessary.
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Um, and I think going back to my comment there around and the permitting, you know, it's three buckets zoning, development, and environmental.
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Zoning, the one that we've cleared, is the politically sensitive one.
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That is the one where it's it it can be very emotional for for for people in the communities.
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Um and it's the one where um you know you can get your your projects shut down, um, not necessarily based on the plans, but based on how you've communicated with the community leaders and and the community in general.
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Um, and and we've cleared that.
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The remaining permits that we have to do across development and environmental, those are way more process data and and uh facts driven, right?
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It's hey, you know, do you have the engineering report that confirms that you've done this, this, and that?
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Uh have you validated with an external party your review of this?
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Have you brought on an environmental, you know, uh consulting group to assess the impact on these endangered species that are present in the area and have you detected their habitats in this area?
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It's like it's not it's not an emotional process.
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It's a have you done A, B, C, D, E, proceed to step two.
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Step two, have you done, you know, A, B, C, D, proceed to step three, right?
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So it's it's process, it's data driven, it's results driven.
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Um, so you know, where we stand right now, we've got really high confidence that we're gonna be able to execute across all of those, um, that we're gonna do it on the timelines that we've outlined.
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And it's part of the reason why we've come out there with increased confidence on the Q1 call.
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You know, I I don't think that we've been rushing that communication.
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I think we've taken our time.
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We've waited till we did have the actual confidence internally that we can make those statements.
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Um, and so anyone who's been paying attention to our story over the last several quarters should know that, you know, we have really done the hard work and we've we've we've precluded from committing ourselves to deadlines we couldn't deliver.
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That is something that we've really taken very seriously.
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So when we come out here on the Q1 call, we say we're gonna get three leases signed this year.
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We're gonna get three leases signed this year.
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I pulled two shorts from that earnings call.
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The first was talking about the commitments you've already delivered on.
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The second was the promises yet to come, those three deals, and we have high confidence you will deliver, Ben.
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My question, this is actually from a subscriber and a good one, kind of specific to Keel and just in general how the process works, if and when, or I should say when a deal is signed at one of these sites.
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Do companies have to report that immediately?
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Is there a window?
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Would you rather tie that in with earnings like we've seen some other companies do?
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How does that actually work?
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It depends on what they've actually signed.
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So uh, you know, you can sign like a non binding agreement, and anything non binding is not uh, you know, you don't have to describe.
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Disclose that.
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It is disclosable if you choose, but it's not a requirement to disclose a non-binding.
00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:08.079
But anything binding, you should have to disclose.
00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:19.759
So as soon as you have a binding material transaction, that's something that should be disclosed in either 24 or 48 hours, depending on the context of that transaction.
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:25.759
Now, to make that a little bit more complex, materiality is a big part of this.
00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:35.759
And so something like a data center announcement that might be material for, you know, uh Keel might not be a material announcement for Amazon.
00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:36.400
Right.
00:22:36.559 --> 00:22:49.279
So just because it's, you know, 300 megawatts and Kiel needs to disclose that, and Kiel would want to disclose it even if it didn't have to, it doesn't mean that Amazon and Microsoft are disclosing those sorts of things, right?
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:52.799
Because for them, a 300 megawatt data center might not be material.
00:22:53.039 --> 00:23:02.079
So, you know, like for instance, if you signed a one megawatt data center, you probably wouldn't need to disclose anything because it doesn't reach those materiality thresholds.
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:09.519
So there is a little bit of a difference between the various uh developers out there, what is material to that developer?
00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:18.559
You know, what's developed, like what's material to Keel may not be material to somebody like Iron with a much larger market cap than us.
00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:24.880
But it's really going to be context-driven, facts-driven, you know, what's going to determine that.
00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:29.599
But anything binding and material, you should have to disclose in either 24 or 48 hours.
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:32.160
So it's that's very interesting, uh, Ben.
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:41.119
I mean, we've just obviously we've got this last two weeks, we've had pretty much earnings every day from a multitude of companies, and we'll have that for the next couple of weeks as we finish off the earnings season.
00:23:41.279 --> 00:23:49.119
But it seems out there was a lot of updates, um, not earnings related, but more outlook related, uh of which some of them were quite significant.
00:23:49.279 --> 00:24:01.759
So do you think uh timing of some of these um updates is to coincide with what we probably expected was a poor earnings season so far uh from a Q1 perspective?
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:17.200
Yeah, I mean, timing it for the quarterly call can be really difficult with having multiple parties in the mix, you know, especially if multiple parties have multiple earnings calls and you're trying to manage the the disclosure requirements there.
00:24:17.279 --> 00:24:30.640
Um the way that you would manage that is you you would just you would get everything negotiated, you'd have kind of the agreement that we're all in place and we're gonna sign, and we're gonna sign, you know, right before earnings so that it falls within that 24 or 48 hour window.
00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:33.759
But you know, it's very hard to execute on on things like that.
00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:49.039
And so maybe you find something like I think a couple of people have announced something like the day after or like two days later or something because they were aiming to get it out there at the quarterly earnings and something happened at the last minute, you know, and and they just they just couldn't get it signed in time.
00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:52.720
It's very hard to line those up with a very short window.
00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:56.640
Good follow-up question and good question from the subscriber too.
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:00.319
Hey, uh, this one is about Panther Creek specifically.
00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:03.359
This is your flagship site, Eastern Pennsylvania.
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:09.680
You've talked about higher barriers to entry, some of the impacts on the potential marketing side and the inference.
00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:14.160
This is also extremely relevant today because Nebbius came out with earnings.
00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:18.319
They announced a 1.2 gigawatt owned site in Pennsylvania.
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:22.160
So I wanted to see how how does this validate that market?
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:25.519
Uh, is this bullish or bearish for Kiel itself?
00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:27.519
And why are you guys so excited?
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:31.599
And now other companies so excited about Pennsylvania.
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:33.839
Uh yeah, no, it's super exciting.
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:40.160
You know, their their deal announcement is uh one of the largest sites that we've seen outside of Texas.
00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:45.599
It's very comparable with our scrubgrass campus that we're we're working to develop.
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:57.920
I think it's you know 1.3-ish gigawatts for for both of the two sites, both on the western side of the state, both kind of uh similar kind of time frame and and and multiple uh phases of development.
00:25:58.079 --> 00:26:06.160
Um I think it's showing how important location is for the market that that's to come with HPC and AI.
00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:11.279
The location thing is is really hard to ignore and get around.
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:15.440
Um, and we think it's it's gonna have have a tremendous amount of value.
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:21.759
We think we're leading in in Pennsylvania, um, and we're gonna try and continue to lead in Pennsylvania and be a leader there.
00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:26.079
Um, but we've seen, you know, Marathon had a recent announcement in Ohio.
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:32.799
BitDeer's got uh infrastructure in Ohio just across the border from you know our our Sharon location.
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:35.920
It's not very far, the Maras and the BitDeer sites.
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:44.240
People are underwriting that region because historically it's been a huge industrial, you know, uh portion of the United States.
00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:47.839
There's a tremendous amount of the population and industrial base there.
00:26:48.079 --> 00:27:02.079
There's a lot of not necessarily you know tier one metros, but a lot of like tier two and tier three metros uh in those regions that also need to be served and are also great, you know, markets for for companies.
00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:04.400
So I think that's gonna come more and more.
00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:14.319
And I think you know, part of the the Pennsylvania advantage is just that uh this is uh they call it the Keystone State for a reason, right?
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:17.440
This was the state that built the country.
00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:31.119
I mean, it had all the resources that you could possibly imagine that you would need to launch an industrial revolution with the coal and the iron ore and the steel manufacturing and everything else.
00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:55.440
Like, I mean, it's it's actually a very cool story to see that the state of Pennsylvania, which is the heart blood of the industrial revolution, it's it's the coal that produced the steel that made the skyscrapers in New York, that made the battleships that that beat the the Axis in World War II, that built the railroads across the country.
00:27:55.680 --> 00:28:05.519
That steel, that coal is now being moved over into things like net gas, into things like uh token factories and AI factories.
00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:16.240
It's this huge modernization of going from the very beginning of the industrial revolution all the way through to the very beginnings of this new AI industrial revolution.
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:30.240
And it just makes so much sense to me that you know the same state which was the lifeblood and the starting thrust of the industrial revolution would also be the keystone state of the AI industrial revolution.
00:28:30.799 --> 00:28:31.920
Yeah, good to know.
00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:34.799
Uh you Bryce mentioned barriers to entry.
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:49.599
And I suppose um, you know, having uh come into space um, you know, as a as a Bitcoin miner um with probably you know less barriers to entry, how do you see the potential for new entrants trying to enter this market?
00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:54.400
What are the big barriers for them entering the market, apart from the obvious one being capital?
00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:05.519
Uh I mean, the big barriers other than capital is is trying to identify the right sites with the with the right timeline, working through permitting and the community engagement.
00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:12.720
Um, you know, we've seen a number of these projects in Pennsylvania slow down or get canceled.
00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:20.480
Um, you know, we have an internal uh resource where we track uh all the data center applications throughout the United States.
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:29.359
Um, and you know, we see everything that's being applied for, we see everything that's having community pushback, we see everything that's been canceled, we see everything that's been approved.
00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:32.400
Like we can keep track of this information.
00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:47.920
And what we're seeing is that a lot of these companies are going in and they're looking to take advantage of the opportunity of the moment, but not necessarily knowing, you know, uh exactly how to do this.
00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:59.519
Because a lot of the times these are companies or individuals who maybe have inherited land through multiple generations, just happens to be next to a substation, but they've never developed infrastructure.
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:09.519
You know, they just know that they've had this land for 30, 40, 50, 100 years in the family, and all of a sudden it's worth a heck of a lot more than it was last year.
00:30:09.599 --> 00:30:14.240
Um, but how do you actually take that from a piece of dirt into a data center?
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:21.599
Well, you need a team, you need expertise, you need resources on the ground, you need significant amounts of capital, you need planning.
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:23.839
All of these things become really, really difficult.
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:29.279
I think those are those are probably a lot of where you see the headlines coming from.
00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:39.440
And then on the far end of that, you have the hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google and Amazon, you know, who can't say they're Microsoft, Google, and Amazon when they go into a small town.
00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:47.839
Because if they're saying, hey, I'm Microsoft, you know, I'd like to build a data center in your town, I mean, uh, good luck, right?
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:57.759
All the wallets will be open, all the hands will be out, nothing will be able to move forward until every penny is able to be extracted.
00:30:57.920 --> 00:31:05.359
And so, you know, they also have a really hard time because they can't go in there and say, we're Microsoft, we're Google, and this is what we want to do.
00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:20.880
They have to go in there and say, you know what, we're ABC Development Corp, and nobody knows who we are or where our money comes from, and they do try and do things a bit more, maybe quietly or discreetly, or behind closed doors.
00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:23.920
And I think that's where you're getting a lot of this community pushback.
00:31:24.079 --> 00:31:34.319
I think people want to make sure that their voices were heard, that they had an input in the process, that their concerns were addressed, that their questions were answered transparently.
00:31:34.559 --> 00:31:51.119
And that's an area where a company like Keel can really be successful and can really apply itself and can really create value in this land development process where it's really hard for smaller guys to do that, and it's actually really hard for the biggest guys to do that.
00:31:51.359 --> 00:31:54.400
This is a very sweet spot for a company like us.
00:31:54.559 --> 00:32:03.839
And, you know, I I think uh it's taken us 12 months to build up the team and these expertise across Pennsylvania.
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:08.799
I think that's gonna be very hard to replicate uh if you're just getting into Pennsylvania today.
00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:16.880
Just as a quick follow-up, Ben, I mean, you talked about those locations in Pennsylvania, you talked about the the industrial area there.
00:32:17.119 --> 00:32:20.480
What are you seeing from the skill set of people within that region there?
00:32:20.559 --> 00:32:33.920
Are you are you gonna be able to find the necessary skills locally, or are you gonna have to bring in expertise to to help you not not build the sites, but actually once they are built to sort of like to manage the infrastructure on your behalf?
00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:44.000
And yeah, you know, labor constraints are a big thing in Texas right now because of you know, easiest place in the union to get land power and permits.
00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:50.240
So is where most of the gross was, which is where more of the jobs were, which is why the the labor shortage is so tight.
00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:57.920
Um, we don't have the same labor shortage in Pennsylvania or Quebec or in Washington that they're have experiencing in Texas.
00:32:58.079 --> 00:33:00.000
So it doesn't matter what you're looking at.
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:12.559
You're looking at, you know, uh electricians or carpenters or steam fitters or plumbers or whatever it is, all the various trades that are needed to build a data center are in ample supply in our three markets.
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:23.279
And part of that is because there's such a huge barrier to entry to coming in and building new projects that you don't have the Deluja projects absorbing all the labor that's there.
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:29.920
Um so uh we don't have any concerns on our end in sourcing uh enough labor.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:34.160
There's really highly skilled labor in Pennsylvania on the trade side.
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:37.839
You know, we we think we've got everything that we're ever going to need there.
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:48.960
Just to double-click on the barriers to entry, we've talked a lot about uh the site locations you have, not just Pennsylvania, but a lot of these markets, very difficult to get into and start operating.
00:33:49.119 --> 00:33:51.119
How does that impact deal economics?
00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:57.359
We've seen colo deals going anywhere from around 1.75 to 2 million a megawatt.
00:33:57.440 --> 00:34:02.000
Would we expect to see higher based on the fact that these are in better locations?
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:17.440
So, you know, we haven't seen a whole lot of market precedence to be able to comment, you know, hey, this is what we've actually seen taking place in places like Pennsylvania and Quebec and Central Washington, like we have in in areas like Texas.
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:24.320
So a lot of this is is is kind of theoretical and it's stuff that we're extracting from conversations.
00:34:24.719 --> 00:34:35.679
But we think that the market has been largely like pricing in the market has largely been based on what traditional pricing in the market has looked like, right?
00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:48.480
We're gonna charge you a certain dollar per kilowatt per month, and this is kind of the framework, and everyone's had a similar kind of framework and a similar kind of you know, lease economic construction that this is how we're gonna price it.
00:34:48.559 --> 00:35:06.559
But one of the things I've been communicating at least for a year uh on channels like yours is that there is a very, very strong economic incentive, we believe, that uh is going to incentivize companies to pay more and more money to deploy faster with greater certainty.
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:18.320
And the reason for that is because if you look at how a uh like a GPU as a service, gross mining margin or gross operating margin looks like, it's like 85%, you know, give or take.
00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:19.920
It's very, very high.
00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:29.519
And of that 15%, you know, cost, maybe two to four is leasing and you know, electricity opex.
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:40.159
And so even if you spent twice as much money on the lease, you would take that gross margin from maybe an 85% down to an 83%.
00:35:41.199 --> 00:36:03.440
And so, you know, that difference does not matter at all for a hyperscaler who's committed to$80 billion of capex spend, you know, this year, and they've got equipment that they have paid for that they need to deploy, or it's gonna sit in a warehouse and it's gonna appreciate, and that market share is gonna go off to a competitor.
00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:04.079
Right.
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:12.320
They would there's a very strong incentive, in my view, to say, you know, I'd rather pay more.
00:36:12.559 --> 00:36:19.840
I'd take marginal hit on my on my gross economics, but I'm deploying faster with greater certainty.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:31.440
I think there's a really strong incentive to say I'd rather operate at an 83% margin in six months than to say I might be able to get an 85% margin in 12 months.
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:34.960
I think everyone is gonna go with bird in hand economics.
00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:44.800
The flip side of that though is that a doubling of the lease rate would be very, very meaningful for the developer.
00:36:45.280 --> 00:37:19.119
So there's a you know, there's an opportunity cost here for the potential tenants around their equipment that they have procured, that they have committed their capital to, and the rate at which Nvidia is producing new hardware and new technology that creates this obsolescence curve for the previous hardware, it really reinforces this timeline that you need to pay more to deploy faster with greater certainty, because a GPU sitting in a warehouse will just depreciate.
00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:23.119
Um, all other things being equal, it will just depreciate over time.
00:37:23.360 --> 00:37:26.159
A gen set, probably not, right?
00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:28.559
Like you pick up a caterpillar gen set.
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:39.519
The genset's the same thing that they've been building for the last 35, 40 years with marginal changes, that genset's gonna be worth the same price in a year.
00:37:39.760 --> 00:37:45.119
If you haven't plugged it in, you haven't turned it on or anything else, like the value of the Genset hasn't changed.
00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:47.599
The value of the compute will drop dramatically.
00:37:47.679 --> 00:37:50.960
So I think there's a really strong economic incentive there to do that.
00:37:51.039 --> 00:37:58.639
Um, and it would be very, very meaningful for developers if they're able to tap into this opportunity cost um dynamic.
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:13.760
The second thing I'd bring up there, and and I think this will be really interesting for for your audience, um, and it's something that we talked about for the first time in the Q1 call, was this uh emerging large-scale enterprise application of AI.
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:26.400
And I've been saying for a very long time that I don't think the economic value of HBC and AI is the ability for anyone to create a meme in two seconds with no effort and post it on X, right?
00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:28.559
That's not the value of AI.
00:38:28.719 --> 00:38:36.880
There's certainly a lot of fun to be had with that, but that's not the revolutionary economic value that comes from AI.
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:40.719
I think the value creation comes from enterprises applying AI.
00:38:40.960 --> 00:38:57.840
It's how do you apply AI to reduce a cost, to drive an efficiency, to drive your productivity, to reduce your headcount, or to increase new, you know, uh business lines, or generate new products, or create better service.
00:38:58.079 --> 00:39:03.199
There's all these ways that AI can be applied in enterprise, and that's where all the money is gonna be made.
00:39:03.360 --> 00:39:10.800
I don't think it's being made on retail customers who are signing up to pay$6 to generate images.
00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:18.400
Uh, I think it's gonna be based on businesses and what they're able to do with the AI.
00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:29.679
And I bring up the large-scale enterprise for Sharon specifically because we originally only thought enterprise would be interested in sites like Moses Lake because of the scale.
00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:33.360
It just was a more manageable scale for these companies.
00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:37.519
And we didn't think that any of these enterprises would have the demand for a site like Sharon.
00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:40.639
Um we were wrong.
00:39:41.039 --> 00:40:03.039
A lot of large financial enterprise customers are interested in large-scale data centers that they run for themselves because they've already successfully used AI to better analyze data, generate better returns with lower risk and better sharp ratios, and they're able to manage more money better.
00:40:03.280 --> 00:40:23.119
And so for enterprises, they have a very different calculation when they're looking at a data center and the data center economics, because a hyperscaler or a neo cloud is looking at what they can sell the tokens for relative to their cost to produce the tokens.
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:28.320
And there's a certain ceiling on a token price that somebody's going to be willing to pay.
00:40:28.480 --> 00:40:40.800
And, you know, naturally over time, as you've seen through hash price and everything else, the price that people should be willing to pay for a token should continuously compress over time as supply grows and you've got Jevon's paradox playing out.
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:49.599
For enterprises, though, the value of a token is not what you can sell it for, it's what you can do with it.
00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:56.480
And there is no ceiling on the value that an enterprise can create by utilizing tokens.
00:40:56.800 --> 00:41:21.119
And so that changes the economic calculation in our view to being around one from that's kind of a commodity rent-driven market to one that's an opportunity cost, a market, and one that's driven on the economic outcomes from having that compute, as opposed to, you know, hey, everyone pays this kind of a rent figure in this kind of an area because that's just what the rent is.
00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:26.800
I think it's going to be switching over to more of a value-driven economic model.
00:41:27.039 --> 00:41:38.800
And that's not going to happen overnight, but it will, I think, continue to unfold as more and more enterprise apply AI to greater and greater effect and really change the dynamics of the whole compute market.
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:39.679
Yeah.
00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:54.960
And just to pick up on two points there, one that you mentioned on a previous podcast, and the fact that you were prepared to wait and not rush into sign a deal because you felt the economics would only get better, which is aligning what you just stated in that previous response.
00:41:55.199 --> 00:42:05.119
Um, Bryce indicated, and I think you know, most of the deals that we've seen at the moment are in that sort of 1.82 million per megawatt in terms of revenue.
00:42:05.280 --> 00:42:15.360
But we did see a deal, I think it was last week on the week before from Digipower, which was a 40 megawatt deal over 10 years with 1.1 billion dollars of revenue.
00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:17.360
Now, that's what they announced.
00:42:17.519 --> 00:42:23.519
I mean, it's got to deliver that, but that suggests closer to$2.5 million per megawatt.
00:42:23.840 --> 00:42:29.679
Um, is that aligning with your with your uh uh thought processing that it's only going to get better?
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:34.400
And the second point is you mentioned margins there, 85% down to 80%.
00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:38.000
Well, Nebius announced today their margin was 45%.
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:42.159
What are the factors that can drive margins down?
00:42:42.239 --> 00:43:00.880
Because what we've said at the moment is some really transparent margins and net operating incomes for the perfect scenario, and we know it's not going to be perfect out there, you know, in terms of delivery until people are really settled in and and and and and got to grips with what they've actually got to deliver.
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:12.320
Yeah, so I mean, when it comes to margins, and I'm not so familiar with the the Nebbius, you know, example, and and I did look at the DigiX example, but I didn't dig into it too much.
00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:18.159
I did see on the DigiX one, I believe that's for delivery in December of 2026.
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:22.480
You can't find power in 2026.
00:43:22.800 --> 00:43:34.079
So if they were able to figure out how to actually deliver customer load this year, they're solving a higher value problem than delivering power next year.
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:43.760
And so, you know, this ties in exactly with what I just said around the opportunity cost and the economic calculations that these companies are running.
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:48.559
You know, like these guys are very smart on the other ends of these deals, right?
00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:50.079
They know how to run this math.
00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:58.159
Like they know how to calculate uh, you know, a net present value function or a discounted cash flow or any of these other number of things.
00:43:58.320 --> 00:43:59.760
Like that's all going to be.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:01.599
Valued accordingly, right?
00:44:01.760 --> 00:44:10.079
Just like I say a megawatt in West Texas is not worth a megawatt in in Manhattan, and it's not worth the same as a megawatt in like the Yukon.
00:44:10.239 --> 00:44:15.440
The same thing, a megawatt in 26 is not worth the same as a megawatt in 27 or in 28, right?
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:20.639
So all of those things do do matter and and do come into the into the calculus.
00:44:20.880 --> 00:44:24.719
The SLAs are a really big part of these lease negotiations, right?
00:44:24.800 --> 00:44:32.000
You know, companies are not going to underwrite multiple billions of investment into a site without performance guarantees.
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:34.480
And so SLAs are a big, big part of this.
00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:43.119
I think generally speaking, what I've seen across the industry is that there are grace periods built into a lot of the contracts that I've I've seen.
00:44:43.360 --> 00:44:53.519
And I think those grace periods are more of a new uh feature that's uh being done because of the market that we're in.
00:44:53.760 --> 00:45:13.360
And it's just taking longer for people to build things, and there's such a supply constraint on the power that if you go forward 12 months and you're looking at, oh, well, they're gonna be two months late on delivery, it's not exactly as if you have another option for deploying that hardware that you had already allocated to that site, right?
00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:19.280
So I would think that, and what we've seen is most of these contracts have some sort of a grace period.
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:23.920
I think 180 days, like six months, has been quite standard.
00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:33.599
But, you know, I it's gonna be dependent on the tenant, the the landlord, the negotiation, the contract, and all these other things.
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:45.599
My guess would be that the land, the power constraint is so severe that even when sites are delayed, no one is going to be able to move because there's no alternative option for them to move.
00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:48.239
So they will just need to work it out.
00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:50.880
And that's what we've seen, I think, in the industry to date.
00:45:51.039 --> 00:46:06.719
Like when, you know, Core Scientific and Core Weave were late, it caused a a bit of a hiccup, you know, for a short period of time in both their their share price performances, but then they delivered and they all recovered and everything is, you know, you know, moving fine afterwards.
00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:08.880
So um those SLAs are there.
00:46:09.039 --> 00:46:10.320
We take them very seriously.
00:46:10.480 --> 00:46:21.519
It's been a huge part of our strategy of not taking on unnecessary risks by signing agreements earlier than we should, or that we'd want to, or that we think is optimal.
00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:26.159
So that's part of how we manage it, and everyone's gonna have their own way of managing it.
00:46:26.239 --> 00:46:28.719
But those are standard features in in these agreements.
00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:45.039
And um I think the developers will will figure it out because the incentives are there for both sides to commission these sites and start generating revenues and and fulfilling on the partnership agreement that was already a mutually beneficial deal.
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:46.079
Yeah, thanks, Ben.
00:46:46.559 --> 00:46:50.800
Last one for me really is about um uh a capital plan for the company.
00:46:50.960 --> 00:47:02.480
Now, I've obviously the balance sheet, um, we covered this in the previous podcast today, and and you know, strong balance sheet there, over 500 million um of cash available to you.
00:47:02.639 --> 00:47:18.960
Um going to the market uh now and and with the potential of getting three deals signed there, um, how much of the near-ton near-term funding milestones will you be able to achieve um to deliver these projects um you know this year and in 2027?
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:40.079
Um I mean I mean we're seeing you know multiples of maybe 80-20 or 70-30 based on the type of deal there, but uh are you confident that um with the discussions that you're having, the potential clients for those three sites, that you're going to get sufficient uh funding from the market to complete what you're required to do.
00:47:40.159 --> 00:47:48.159
Uh bear in mind, you know, we're talking, you know, you know, circa nine, eleven million dollars per megawatt to deliver these type of projects.
00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:56.159
Uh yes, Anthony, we're very confident that we're going to be able to get the financing for uh these these leases and these projects.
00:47:56.400 --> 00:48:02.320
You know, it's it's probably the first filter that every developer is looking at right now is the financing.
00:48:02.559 --> 00:48:14.159
And so, you know, unless you're able to underwrite one of these projects off your own balance sheet, which we've seen very few examples of, um, I think Wi-Fi is the only example that I I can point out too.
00:48:14.239 --> 00:48:20.159
And that was a relatively small site, you're gonna need to do financing.
00:48:20.320 --> 00:48:24.320
And so that is one of the first questions on the developer's perspective.
00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:27.199
You know, what is your credit story?
00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:28.559
Do you have a wrapper?
00:48:28.719 --> 00:48:30.239
Do you have a backstop?
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:35.519
You know, are you even still investment grade, even if you were investment grade a month ago?
00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:40.079
Because that story has been changing in real time with some of these players, right?
00:48:40.400 --> 00:48:42.719
So that's one of the developers' first questions.
00:48:42.880 --> 00:48:51.599
We're we're highly confident that any deal that we sign is gonna be financed because we're filtering out the deals that are unfinanceable, right?
00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:58.880
We're not gonna be working through negotiation and due diligence on deals uh that we're ultimately not gonna be able to finance.
00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:01.360
So high confidence there on that one.
00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:08.480
And then just one quick comment, you know, in terms of the uh the capital available for these projects at large.
00:49:08.880 --> 00:49:20.000
I mean, you know, there was probably a small period of time over the last couple of months where uh the capital was getting a little bit spooked and it pulled back.
00:49:20.239 --> 00:49:26.800
Um, it seems like as of today, that capital is all ready again and is here to be deployed.
00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:41.280
You know, uh I'm not sure how many people keep track of Kiel's bonds uh and the the pricing of our bonds, but you know, when um the the standard reference price for a bond is obviously a dollar, it's a dollar on a dollar.
00:49:41.599 --> 00:49:47.039
And so, you know, when it's below a dollar, it's traded down, when it's above a dollar, you know, it's traded up.
00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:56.400
And um when we uh issued our convertible bonds in October, uh our share price was around five or six dollars.
00:49:56.559 --> 00:50:01.679
When we pulled back, you know, in the subsequent months, those those convertibles traded down.
00:50:01.840 --> 00:50:10.480
But in the uh recent weeks, as we've been recovering, the convertible bonds have outperformed the underlying equity.
00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:12.800
And that's unusual.
00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:21.039
That's a really strong indicator of the capital available in credit markets and what it's doing and how eager it is to be deployed.
00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:25.360
Um, and you know, we speak with a lot of our convertible investors.
00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:30.559
I spoke with uh a number of them yesterday uh and the day before after earnings.
00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:36.480
And, you know, it's some of these guys, I asked them about their trading strategy on the convertible bonds.
00:50:36.559 --> 00:50:47.920
Um, and he said, you know, it's so funny because uh when the bonds had traded down to like 65 cents on the dollar, I couldn't get any one of my investors to buy in.
00:50:48.079 --> 00:50:53.039
But now that they're back at 96 cents, the demand is through the roof, you know.
00:50:53.360 --> 00:51:03.760
So the it's it's more of a it's not really a function of the pricing, it's a function of the timing and the broader macro, which is really feeding into the the credit markets.
00:51:04.079 --> 00:51:06.880
But the credit markets are back in in full force.
00:51:07.039 --> 00:51:18.239
And um, I mean, we we're hearing about projects that uh had 100% uh loan to cost, and they said, you know what, actually, 100% seems a little crazy.
00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:21.760
Maybe we'll put in one percent equity, bring it down to 99.
00:51:22.159 --> 00:51:24.239
You know, traditionally it's 7030.
00:51:25.039 --> 00:51:38.800
So these kind of numbers are only possible when the credit markets are really eager to allocate capital into what is an increasingly smaller number of high-quality projects.
00:51:39.119 --> 00:51:43.280
Yeah, just like Bitcoin, no one wants it at 50, everyone's lined up at 100.
00:51:43.360 --> 00:51:46.320
Uh, Ben, this was a phenomenal interview.
00:51:46.559 --> 00:51:47.679
Very insightful.
00:51:47.920 --> 00:51:50.079
I wanted to give you an opportunity to close out.
00:51:50.159 --> 00:51:51.920
I know we're a minute over time here.
00:51:52.079 --> 00:52:02.559
And final question, just in terms of uh raising money, we've seen some of your peers issue a share of the company or equity to some of these hyperscalers or enterprise clients.
00:52:02.719 --> 00:52:05.360
Is that uh on the agenda at all for Kiel?
00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:09.760
So we're fortunate enough that we've got a really, really strong balance sheet.
00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:13.760
We have no reason or no need to issue equity right now.
00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:22.800
We've got everything that we need to go forward and execute across permitting and lease execution and you know everything that we have planned.
00:52:23.039 --> 00:52:24.880
So there's there's no need for that.
00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:35.119
Um, we'll always be you know strategic and opportunistic if there's an amazing opportunity, but there's really no need, no pressure.
00:52:35.280 --> 00:52:39.199
Um, the old adage is raise money when you can, not when you have to.
00:52:39.360 --> 00:52:42.480
That's what we did in October, and so now we don't have to.
00:52:42.639 --> 00:52:48.239
And the other component of your question is kind of regarding taking equity at the corporate level.
00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:52.719
You know, there's always options for taking equity at the corporate level.
00:52:52.960 --> 00:53:02.639
I think it would probably be pretty smart for a potential tenant to want to have equity in Keel, you know, I like the stock, I would hope they like the stock.
00:53:02.880 --> 00:53:12.079
Um and they would see the upside, the upside potential in that, but that's really going to be customer specific, deal specific, negotiation specific.
00:53:12.480 --> 00:53:19.280
Um, you know, I think the market is looking at how they can creatively solve problems.
00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:34.880
And so you're seeing a lot of ingenuity being applied to these leases and these negotiations, things that, you know, you might not have expected, but once you've reviewed them and you've dug into them and you've understood them, you're like, oh wow, that actually makes sense.
00:53:34.960 --> 00:53:37.119
I've, you know, maybe I should have thought of that.
00:53:37.280 --> 00:53:43.360
But it was just one of those like unknown unknowns that you didn't even know that you should be thinking about.
00:53:43.519 --> 00:53:46.320
Um, so I think there's there's infinite opportunities like that.
00:53:46.400 --> 00:53:48.559
I think companies are getting really flexible.
00:53:48.719 --> 00:54:00.000
I think the fact that hyperscalers have taken equity and taken warrants and taken option in uh, you know, the companies in our space who are moving over in HBC and AI, I think is incredibly bullish.
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:08.000
I think it helps to provide confidence, you know, in our ability as an industry to execute and create value for these companies.
00:54:08.239 --> 00:54:16.719
And you know, we'll see what what deals look like in in a year and in two years, but I just think they're just going to need to continue to evolve and continue to get more and more creative.
00:54:17.119 --> 00:54:27.679
You have a slidey presentation, Ben, that sort of highlights how the market may perceive uh keel once a once a contract has been uh has been uh acknowledged.
00:54:28.639 --> 00:54:31.760
Uh I think the market will receive that very well.
00:54:32.400 --> 00:54:32.880
Excellent.
00:54:33.039 --> 00:54:35.119
Hey, we received this interview very well.
00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:37.360
We'll give you an opportunity to close out here.
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:39.360
I've got another old adage for you, Ben.
00:54:39.440 --> 00:54:41.360
It's the captain goes down with the ship.
00:54:41.519 --> 00:54:42.880
You're the captain at Keel.
00:54:43.119 --> 00:54:44.880
You've made some big promises here.
00:54:45.039 --> 00:54:46.239
We know you can deliver.
00:54:46.320 --> 00:54:49.280
And as I've said, you've delivered on every commitment so far.
00:54:49.440 --> 00:54:50.639
So congratulations.
00:54:50.800 --> 00:54:53.840
We'll give you an opportunity to close and thanks so much.
00:54:54.880 --> 00:54:57.519
Uh well, thank you guys for having me on again.
00:54:57.599 --> 00:54:59.199
It's always a pleasure to come on.
00:54:59.440 --> 00:55:05.039
Um, you know, I will have to disagree with what the captain goes down with the ship because this ship's never going down.
00:55:05.199 --> 00:55:08.880
It's it's just going forward and upwards from here.
00:55:09.199 --> 00:55:13.760
Uh, and the captain will be there, you know, leading the way for the entire keel crew.
00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:16.639
But um, no, it's super exciting over here.
00:55:16.800 --> 00:55:33.440
I think, you know, six months ago, a lot of the sentiment around our our company was, you know, I don't think these guys are moving fast enough, and and I don't see them, you know, signing a lease uh as fast as somebody else is gonna sign a lease.
00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:41.519
And, you know, I'm gonna buy somebody else and I'll rotate it back into Keel, you know, when I think they're closer.
00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:50.719
I think we've done all that hard work that we said that we were gonna do, and I think that really positions us super, super well now rolling forward.
00:55:50.880 --> 00:56:01.280
I looking around at the industry, I just don't see the opportunities in a lot of these companies like that are in our company rolling forward.
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:05.039
Everything is is is ahead of us, nothing is priced in.
00:56:05.199 --> 00:56:06.079
What can I say, guys?
00:56:06.159 --> 00:56:07.199
I like the stock.
00:56:07.519 --> 00:56:09.039
Yeah, we like the stock too.
00:56:09.119 --> 00:56:14.880
Let us know your thoughts if you're holding Kiel, what you thought of earnings and these announcements in the comment section below.
00:56:15.119 --> 00:56:16.719
Thanks so much for the time, Ben.
00:56:16.880 --> 00:56:18.960
We'll see you back here tomorrow.