Blackstone's $11.5B TXNM Deal Hits New Mexico DOJ Objection

Blackstone Infrastructure’s $11.5 billion purchase of TXNM Energy, parent of New Mexico utility PNM, has drawn a fresh objection from the state Department of Justice, this time over financing rather than the acquisition itself. The DOJ told the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission that TXNM’s amended compliance report on a $400 million Wells Fargo term loan does not show whether that debt could push hidden costs onto PNM ratepayers, and asked the commission to require a full accounting in PNM’s next rate case.

Why it matters

For a data center or other large-load developer, this fight is not really about a loan. It is about who owns the wires and how fast a regulated utility can add capacity once an infrastructure fund is behind it. Power availability, not land or entitlements, is now the gating factor on where AI infrastructure gets sited, and Blackstone buying a regulated utility outright is how private capital is positioning for that shift. A state DOJ slowing the deal over ratepayer protections is siting-politics risk surfacing one layer upstream, in utility ownership rather than in a single project’s permit file. Developers with sites in PNM’s New Mexico territory should treat the merger’s uncertain close, not the interconnection queue, as the near-term constraint, and watch whether data-center capital keeps flowing instead to Texas, where TXNM’s other utility, TNMP, already serves hyperscale customers under a Public Utility Commission that has already approved the deal.

The numbers

Blackstone Infrastructure agreed in May 2025 to acquire TXNM Energy for $61.25 a share in cash, an $11.5 billion enterprise value. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cleared the deal in February 2026, but the NMPRC has not, and a July 2 final order in docket 25-00060-UT voided a separate $400 million stock sale between a Blackstone affiliate and TXNM for closing without prior state approval. TXNM’s 2025 annual report put TNMP’s data-center load growth at 70.5% year over year, inside a company-wide capital plan of $10.2 billion through 2030.

What’s next

The NMPRC has paused the acquisition phase of the docket while the loan and stock-sale issues are resolved. Developers tracking the national market should watch whether that phase resumes before the extended deadline, since a deal that drifts past May 2027 leaves PNM’s capacity planning, and any data-center interconnection tied to it, in limbo.