EXA Infrastructure to acquire Aqua Comms

Author: Simon Rowley

EXA Infrastructure has announced that it has signed binding agreements to acquire Aqua Comms – a specialist operator of transatlantic and intra-European subsea infrastructure.

EXA Infrastructure, a London-based portfolio company of I Squared Capital – an independent global infrastructure investment manager – operates over 150,000km of digital infrastructure across 37 countries, including 20 cable landing stations that provide critical connectivity to subsea systems.

Aqua Comms is an Ireland-based service provider specialising in operating submarine cable systems and supplying fibre pairs, spectrum and wholesale network capacity to the global content, cloud, carrier and enterprise markets. It is the owner/operator of America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1), America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2), CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) and CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) and is part of a consortium that owns and operates the Amitié cable system (AEC-3).

Speaking on the deal, Jim Fagan, Chief Executive of EXA Infrastructure, comments, “The acquisition of Aqua Comms demonstrates EXA Infrastructure’s commitment to build a modern and diverse transatlantic platform to fully serve AI, cloud and content demand, now and in the future. The combination will offer our customers more routes, more capacity and increased diversity, all on a scaled platform.”

The planned transaction is expected to complete in approximately 12 months, subject to customary closing conditions.

Akur Capital and RBC Capital Markets are acting as financial advisors to EXA Infrastructure in connection with the transaction and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is serving as legal M&A advisor to EXA Infrastructure. Goldman Sachs is acting as financial advisor to D9 in connection with the transaction and Shoosmiths is serving as legal advisor to D9.

For more from EXA Infrastructure, click here.