Sir Nick Clegg holds 917,460 shares in Nscale, the British data centre developer preparing to float on Wall Street, a stake worth about $18m at the valuation the company is said to be seeking.
The former deputy prime minister was granted the shares as a reward for his role as a director of the Nvidia-backed company, which he joined six months ago. The holding represents about 0.12 per cent of Nscale’s stock.
Nscale is said to be seeking a valuation of about $35bn in its initial public offering. It was valued at about $14.6bn in March, when it raised $2bn in a funding round and appointed Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg to its board.
The company has not yet set a price for its shares or said how many it will issue. The issuance of new shares could dilute Clegg’s holding.
Clegg served as president of global affairs at Meta until last year. Filings showed that he sold about £24m worth of Meta shares between 2022 and 2024.
He and Sandberg, Meta’s former chief operating officer, both serve as directors of Nscale. Susan Decker, the former Yahoo president, joined the board at the same time in March.
In its prospectus, Nscale said: “Clegg’s extensive experience in global public policy, international government affairs, and technology industry leadership, as well as his deep relationships with governments and regulatory bodies worldwide, make him qualified to serve on our board of directors.”
Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s former head of artificial general intelligence deployment, has also been appointed to Nscale’s board.
Nscale filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday for a proposed listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NSCL. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are the lead bookrunners, according to the company’s announcement.
The prospectus revealed that Nscale lost $1bn in the first six months of this year, on revenues of $140.6m. The company said revenue was up more than tenfold on the same period last year, when it stood at $10.4m.
The company has attributed the scale of its losses to capital expenditure on expanding its data centres. Its contracts include a six-year deal worth $45bn with Anthropic and agreements with Microsoft worth $44bn running until 2033.
The filing also disclosed that the company’s founder, Josh Payne, is in line for performance-related payouts worth up to $350m. Payne, a 32-year-old former construction worker from Australia, will receive the share-based payments if the company hits various targets.
The potential award accounts for about 2.5 per cent of Nscale’s share capital. According to the prospectus, 40 per cent of the shares are linked to stock price targets and a further 40 per cent to the deployment of computing capacity, with vesting between 2028 and 2032, as reported in detail by Business Matters.
Payne’s compensation last year, including share awards, was £17.2m.
Nscale’s March funding round was backed by investors including Nvidia, Aker ASA and 8090 Industries. The $2bn raise was one of the largest in a half-year in which UK tech funding nearly doubled to $15.3bn, with AI infrastructure companies taking a large share of the capital.
The final value of Clegg’s stake will depend on the price Nscale sets for its shares and the number of new shares it issues in the offering.
Amy Ingham
Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College's journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel's nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.
