Equinix: the landlord with a thousand tenants, borrowing to build

Equinix is the datacentre landlord with the broadest tenant list: thousands of companies rent space in its sites and pay to connect to each other there. That is the opposite of the model MenFem is bearish on at CoreWeave, where a few customers fill purpose-built halls. In the quarter to September 2026 revenue was $2.57B, up 11%, at a 51% adjusted EBITDA margin; annualized gross bookings were a record $533M, up 35%; and it raised its 2026 guidance a third time, to AFFO of $43.71–44.11 a share, of which $0.31 is a one-off fee from its new atNorth venture. It is aiming new products at enterprise AI inference, with NVIDIA and Together AI. We are WATCHING rather than buying because the build is paid for with debt and the AI lift is not yet clear in the numbers. Free cash flow was −$801M over nine months; debt principal rose to $25.2B, up 18% since December, against adjusted EBITDA up about 15%; and interest expense rose 27%. Its long-run plan, set in 2025, is AFFO per share growth of 5–9% a year, and part of this year's beat is the one-off fee. The test is the first 2027 guide, due in February. WATCHING, conviction MEDIUM, one year. This view was formed by MenFem's research process at Connor's request and adopted by him. The entry is the 6 November 2026 closing price; the market was closed when the call was published on 7 November.