Digital Realty Trust's Series K preferred shares, a 5.85% cumulative perpetual issue with a $25 liquidation preference, closed at $20.41 on September 29, 2026, a level that leaves the security trading roughly 18% below its face value. The stock, listed under the ticker DLR'K and also quoted as DLR-K, DLRprK and DLR.PRK, has been callable by the company since March 13, 2024, yet remains outstanding and continues to pay its $1.4625 annual dividend on a quarterly cycle, producing a current yield of 7.17%, well above its original 5.85% coupon.
The gap between market price and par is notable because it has persisted through a period in which Digital Realty's common stock and much of the broader AI infrastructure trade have drawn strong investor interest. Digital Realty's other outstanding preferred series, carrying coupons of 5.250% and 5.200%, sit in the same capital structure, and the pattern of preferred shares trading well under their $25 issue price, in some cases by as much as the high teens to high twenties percentage-wise, first stood out in data tracked on Preferred Stock AI, a Madison Labs research site.
For income-focused investors, the discount to par means a fixed-income instrument backed by a cumulative dividend obligation, meaning any missed payment would need to be made up before common shareholders receive distributions, is available at a price well under what the company could theoretically pay to redeem it. Because the shares have been callable since 2024, Digital Realty retains the option to retire the Series K preferred at $25 per share at any time, though it has not exercised that right. The absence of a redemption despite the call window being open for more than two years is a fact reflected in the trading data itself, not a statement about the company's future intentions, which have not been disclosed publicly by Digital Realty.
Why this divergence may matter to investors centers on the contrast between the fixed-income and equity portions of Digital Realty's capital stack. While the Series K preferred sits nearly a fifth below par, Digital Realty's common stock closed at $176.56, within a 52-week range of $146.23 to $208.14, reflecting a business that has been the subject of active coverage tied to artificial intelligence demand. Financial media outlets including Yahoo Finance and Simply Wall St have in recent weeks published analyses weighing Digital Realty against rival data-center operator Equinix and questioning whether the common shares are undervalued relative to the company's AI-driven growth push, according to headlines dated September 23 through September 29, 2026. Zacks also reported the company's expansion of subsea connectivity infrastructure with a new Los Angeles cable station during the same period.
Digital Realty operates as a real estate investment trust that owns and operates data centers globally, with a portfolio the company has described as comprising 310 facilities across six continents as of December 31, 2025, according to its own disclosures. The company filed a prospectus supplement for a $7.5 billion at-the-market common stock program with a broad syndicate of underwriters including BofA Securities, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan, a filing that outlines its ongoing capital-raising activity as it builds out data-center capacity to serve enterprise and AI-related demand.
The broader market backdrop includes continued strength in semiconductor and AI infrastructure names, with Applied Materials up 5.2%, Oracle up 4.0% and KLA Corporation up 3.9% on the day referenced in trading data, alongside Meta Platforms up 3.2%. That momentum in AI-adjacent equities stands apart from the preferred market's pricing of Digital Realty's fixed-income instruments, where the Series K shares' 52-week range of $20.04 to $24.92 shows the stock has not traded near its $25 par value at any point in the past year.
What market participants may watch next includes whether Digital Realty exercises its option to call the Series K preferred now that it has been eligible to do so since 2024, and whether the wider gap between the company's AI-linked common stock narrative and its preferred securities' below-par pricing narrows. Any redemption decision, dividend change or shift in interest-rate expectations could influence how the discount evolves, though no such action has been announced by the company as of the most recent trading session referenced in the data.