Is CSQR a Buy or a Sell? The Bull and Bear Case (2026)

Last updated July 2026

Short answer

Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested. The bull case for Csquare (CSQR) rests on Capacity is sold beyond what exists: Contracted power sold reached 107% at the end of the second quarter, up from 87% a year earlier, with 410 MW contracted against 385 MW sellable. The bear case rests on the underlying assets came out of distress, with Cyxtera having gone through bankruptcy in 2023 and Evoque being a carve-out from AT&T, so a meaningful part of recent margin improvement is turnaround work that has to keep going rather than a steady-state run rate. Analysts covering it publish targets from $24.00 to $46.00 against a $22.98 price, so even the professionals disagree by 77% of their own average. We do not give a verdict. What follows is each case at full strength, so you can decide which set of assumptions you actually believe. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Csquare runs roughly 60 carrier-neutral data centers across about 21 metropolitan markets in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, renting secure space, resilient power, cooling and dense network connectivity to more than 1,700 enterprise, network, cloud and technology customers. The business is retail colocation rather than hyperscale build-to-suit: deployments are typically under 5 MW, contracts are recurring, and the stickiness comes from the interconnection ecosystem, with more than 36,600 cross-connect and related products sold across the estate. The company was built by Brookfield, which bought Evoque from AT&T in 2019 and then acquired Cyxtera out of bankruptcy in early 2024, combined them under the Centersquare name and renamed the platform Csquare ahead of the IPO. It is headquartered in Coppell, Texas, and is led by CEO Spencer Mullee. The investment picture is a turnaround meeting a demand cycle. Second quarter 2026 revenue was ~$280 million, up 14.5% year over year, adjusted EBITDA was ~$120 million at a 46.2% margin, and net revenue churn fell to 2.4% from 2.9%. Contracted power capacity reached 410 MW against 385 MW of sellable capacity, so contracted power sold sits at 107%, meaning the constraint is delivering new megawatts rather than finding customers. Against that, the company still lost ~$49 million in the quarter and roughly ~$186 million on a trailing twelve month basis, and it plans ~$610 million to ~$660 million of growth capital expenditure in 2026 against ~$460 million to ~$480 million of guided adjusted EBITDA. The July IPO raised ~$1.16 billion net, all of which went to repaying debt and cut annualised interest expense by ~$63 million, which is the single largest change to the earnings profile going forward.

The bull case: what would have to be true for $46.00

The most optimistic published target on CSQR is $46.00, +100.2% from the $22.98 price as of August 2026. Getting there needs the following to work close to its best case, not merely to avoid going wrong.

1. Capacity is sold beyond what exists

Contracted power sold reached 107% at the end of the second quarter, up from 87% a year earlier, with 410 MW contracted against 385 MW sellable. That is an unusual position for a colocation operator and it changes the negotiation: pricing on renewals and expansions is set from scarcity rather than from vacancy. It also means near-term revenue growth is gated by construction and power delivery schedules, not by sales.

2. Recurring retail colocation with an interconnection moat

Csquare sells sub-5 MW deployments to more than 1,700 customers and layers more than 36,600 interconnection products on top. Once a customer's network and cloud on-ramps terminate in a facility, moving is expensive and disruptive, which shows up in net revenue churn falling to 2.4% from 2.9%. Bookings of ~$64.7 million in the quarter were a record and, being annualised contract value, they feed revenue over the following several quarters.

3. The IPO reset the capital structure

The offering of 50.0 million shares at $21, plus a 7,499,000 share greenshoe exercised on July 27, produced ~$1.16 billion of net proceeds that went entirely to debt repayment. Management puts the annualised interest saving at ~$63 million. The second quarter net loss of ~$48.8 million was driven largely by pre-IPO interest and one-time offering costs, so the go-forward loss should be materially smaller even before any operating improvement.

4. Capital intensity is both the engine and the ceiling

2026 guidance calls for ~$610 million to ~$660 million of non-recurring growth capital expenditure plus ~$55 million to ~$65 million of recurring capex, against guided adjusted EBITDA of ~$460 million to ~$480 million. Csquare spends more building capacity than the platform generates, which is normal for a data center operator in expansion mode and also means external funding is a permanent feature. How cheaply that capital is raised, and how quickly new megawatts lease up, decides whether growth compounds or dilutes.

The bear case: what would have to be true for $24.00

The most pessimistic published target is $24.00, +4.4% from the current price. That is not a floor and not a forecast; it is roughly what one analyst thinks Csquare is worth if the risks below bite instead of the drivers above.

The underlying assets came out of distress, with Cyxtera having gone through bankruptcy in 2023 and Evoque being a carve-out from AT&T, so a meaningful part of recent margin improvement is turnaround work that has to keep going rather than a steady-state run rate. The company is still loss-making at the GAAP line and free cash flow is negative once growth capex is counted, so the balance sheet that the IPO just cleaned can re-lever. There is exactly one quarter of public reporting, no history of hitting or missing guidance, and Brookfield still holds the large majority of the shares after selling roughly a third of the company, which leaves a supply overhang when IPO lockups lapse. Competition is real: Equinix and Digital Realty are far larger with cheaper capital and denser interconnection ecosystems, private operators like Cologix, DataBank, Flexential and TierPoint fight for the same enterprise deployments, and hyperscalers can pull workloads onto their own footprint. Finally, being contracted past 100% only converts to revenue if new capacity lands on schedule, and power availability, utility interconnect queues and electrical equipment lead times are the industry's tightest constraints right now.

The bear case deserves the same attention as the bull case, and usually gets less. If you are holding CSQR already, the question is not whether these risks exist but whether any of them has moved from possible to actually happening in the reported numbers.

Where analysts land on CSQR

10 analysts cover CSQR, with an average target of $28.50 (+24.0% against $22.98) and a split of 9 buy, 1 hold, 0 sell. Bear in mind sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market, so that split is not a balanced vote. The full target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted are on the CSQR forecast and price target page.

How is CSQR valued? (as of August 2026)

Price

$22.98

Market cap

$3.56B

Forward P/E

-22.62

52-week range

$19.50 to $23.50

Snapshot for CSQR as of August 2026, sourced from Yahoo Finance and may be delayed. Valuation figures move with price and earnings; verify the current numbers with your broker before deciding.

Revenue (TTM): ~$1.06B
Q2 2026 revenue: ~$280M, up ~14.5% year over year
Q2 2026 adjusted EBITDA: ~$120M at a ~46.2% margin
Net loss (TTM): ~$186M (Q2 alone was ~$49M)
2026 guidance: revenue ~$1.13B to ~$1.17B, adjusted EBITDA ~$460M to ~$480M
Market cap: ~$3.6B to ~$3.8B at ~$23 a share, roughly 3.4x trailing sales

There is no meaningful price to earnings figure because Csquare loses money at the GAAP line, so the multiples that matter here are sales and adjusted EBITDA, and enterprise value sits well above market capitalisation because debt remains on the books even after the ~$1.16 billion IPO paydown. On guided 2026 adjusted EBITDA of ~$460 million to ~$480 million the equity alone is priced at roughly 8x, which is a fraction of what Equinix and Digital Realty carry. That discount is the argument and the warning at the same time: it reflects the distressed history of the assets, the negative free cash flow while growth capex runs at ~$610 million to ~$660 million, and the fact that the market has seen one quarter of numbers.

How do you decide if CSQR is a buy?

Rather than asking whether CSQR is a buy in the abstract, it tends to help to answer four questions:

Thesis: do you believe the bull case above, and is it still true today?
Time horizon: a single stock can be volatile, so a longer horizon absorbs more of the swings.
Position sizing: a thesis can be right and the sizing still wrong; decide how much of your portfolio one name should be.
Overlap: check whether you already hold CSQR indirectly through an index or sector ETF before adding more.

What would change your mind on CSQR

Write the tripwires down before you need them. Deciding what would falsify your view is far harder once a position is moving against you.

Bull case breaks if: Capacity is sold beyond what exists stalls in the reported numbers rather than in the narrative around them.
Bear case breaks if: the underlying assets came out of distress, with Cyxtera having gone through bankruptcy in 2023 and Evoque being a carve-out from AT&T, so a meaningful part of recent margin improvement is turnaround work that has to keep going rather than a steady-state run rate fails to materialise over several reporting periods while the drivers keep compounding.
Neither matters if: the position has grown large enough that being wrong would damage the whole portfolio. Sizing overrides the argument.

For the full picture, see the CSQR stock guide (what the company does, the ETFs that hold it, similar stocks, and the themes it fits). In Walnut you can ask its AI about CSQR against your real portfolio and see your actual exposure before deciding.

Investing in Csquare with AI

Connect the broker you already use and ask Walnut's AI how CSQR fits what you actually hold: whether you own it already through a fund, what it would do to your concentration, and how it has tracked the S&P 500. Read-only by default, and you approve anything before it reaches your broker.

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FAQ

Is CSQR a good stock to buy right now?

That depends on which case you find more convincing, and both are on this page. The bull case rests on Capacity is sold beyond what exists, with revenue (ttm) at ~$1.06B. The bear case rests on the underlying assets came out of distress, with Cyxtera having gone through bankruptcy in 2023 and Evoque being a carve-out from AT&T, so a meaningful part of recent margin improvement is turnaround work that has to keep going rather than a steady-state run rate. Analysts covering it are spread from $24.00 to $46.00, which is itself a signal that this is genuinely contested. If you believe the thesis, the real questions become sizing and overlap rather than timing. Walnut is not an investment adviser and this is not a recommendation.

Should I sell CSQR?

Nobody can answer that for you, and the honest version of the question is narrower: has anything changed in the reason you bought it? The bear case on this page is the place to check. The underlying assets came out of distress, with Cyxtera having gone through bankruptcy in 2023 and Evoque being a carve-out from AT&T, so a meaningful part of recent margin improvement is turnaround work that has to keep going rather than a steady-state run rate. If that risk is what you were worried about and it is now playing out, that is a real signal. If the price simply fell while the thesis held, that is a different situation entirely. The most pessimistic published target is $24.00, +4.4% from the $22.98 price, which is one analyst's downside case rather than a floor. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

What is the bull case for CSQR?

Capacity is sold beyond what exists. Contracted power sold reached 107% at the end of the second quarter, up from 87% a year earlier, with 410 MW contracted against 385 MW sellable. The most optimistic analyst target on CSQR is $46.00, +100.2% from the $22.98 price. That figure is only reachable if this thesis works close to its best case.

What is the bear case for CSQR?

What does Csquare do?

Brookfield-backed carrier-neutral colocation operator with about 60 data centers across 21 metros, built from the Evoque and Cyxtera platforms.

What would have to change for CSQR to stop being worth holding?

Decide that in advance, because it is far harder to think clearly once a position is moving against you. The concrete tripwires here: the driver behind the bull case (Capacity is sold beyond what exists) stalling in the reported numbers rather than in the narrative, the risk above (the underlying assets came out of distress, with Cyxtera having gone through bankruptcy in 2023 and Evoque being a carve-out from AT&T, so a meaningful part of recent margin improvement is turnaround work that has to keep going rather than a steady-state run rate) turning from a possibility into a reported fact, or the position growing large enough that a bad outcome would matter to your whole portfolio regardless of who is right.

What does Csquare (CSQR) actually do?

Csquare operates carrier-neutral colocation data centers, roughly 60 of them across about 21 metro markets in the US, Canada and the UK. Customers rent secure space, power, cooling and network connectivity rather than buying the building. More than 1,700 enterprise, network, cloud and technology customers use the platform, and Csquare also sells over 36,600 interconnection products that link those customers to each other and to cloud on-ramps.

When did Csquare go public and at what price?

Csquare completed its IPO of 50.0 million shares at $21.00 per share and began trading on the NYSE under CSQR on July 17, 2026. Underwriters exercised an option for a further 7,499,000 shares on July 27. Combined net proceeds were about $1.16 billion after underwriting discounts. The $21 pricing came in below the marketed range of $23 to $27, and the stock has since traded near $23.

Is Csquare the same company as Cyxtera or Evoque?

It is built from both. Brookfield bought Evoque Data Center Solutions from AT&T in 2019 for roughly $1.1 billion, then acquired Cyxtera Technologies out of bankruptcy in January 2024 for about $775 million. The two estates were merged under the Centersquare name during 2024 and rebranded Csquare in early 2026 before the listing. Anyone researching the assets should read the Cyxtera bankruptcy history as part of the story.

Walnut is informational, not investment advice, and gives no verdict on CSQR. Analyst targets referenced here come from a August 2026 pull of published third-party research and change constantly. Verify current figures with your broker before acting on them.