The Irish state will pump $25m into the firm behind a giant cable from Mayo to the US
The investment will be the first made with funds from the sale of Aer Lingus.
THE IRISH STATE’S sovereign wealth fund will invest $25 million (€22 million) in the company behind a fibre optic cable connecting Mayo and New York.
The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) announced today that it will make the investment in Dublin-based Aqua Comms DAC, the operator of Ireland’s first dedicated subsea fibre-optic network.
Last year it was announced that the cable is to be landed at Killala, near Ballina in Mayo, and will connect New York, Dublin and London. A spokeswoman for Aqua Comms said that the cable has been completed and is operational.
The investment is one of the first to be made from the proceeds of the sale of the state’s shares in Aer Lingus last year.
A statement from ISIF said that the cable’s network will be used by major multinational technology and telecoms companies “to provide fast, secure data connections between Ireland, the US and UK”.
New York-based private equity group Cartesian Capital has already agreed to invest $50 million in the project.
Critical infrastructure
A statement from Aqua Comms also said that ISIF has “advised of its interest, subject to certain conditions being met, in funding up to a further $25 million of equity capital alongside a similar amount from co-investment partner Cartesian Capital”.
The second $25 million tranche from the state fund would bring the total funds committed to Aqua Comms by the two groups to $125 million.
The ISIF’s head of infrastructure, Donal Murphy, said that the new fibre-optic cable “is a critical piece of enabling infrastructure that will enhance Ireland’s ability to capitalise on its position as a data centre and connectivity hub and will benefit both multinational and indigenous companies”.
A map of the cable's route from the US to Ireland
Aqua Comms already operates several subsea fibre-optic networks connected to Ireland, including one linking to the United Kingdom across the Irish Sea.
Thor Johnson from Aqua Ventures International, the founding investor in Aqua Comms, said that its network helps to “drive scale, business economics and security of data for international enterprises”.
He added that Ireland will remain “a critical data hub in an ever more connected world”, and added that Aqua Comms is “delighted to have ISIF as a strategic investor”.
Strategic position
Head of Mayo Council’s enterprise unit Joanne Grehan previously said that the cable will put Mayo in a “very strategic position as a landfall location for a global asset”.
“We’ll be driving the areas close to the cable’s landfall as a centre for the data processing, data storage and related industries,” she said at the time of the initial announcement.
ISIF also announced that it rolled an existing investment in bonds for Dublin and Cork Airport operator DAA into a €35 million commitment to a new bond.
The two investments were the first to be made from ISIF’s connectivity fund, which was set up to spend the €335 million proceeds from the sale of the state’s shareholding in Aer Lingus on improving the state’s infrastructure.
