D9 Divests Interest in EMIC-1 Cable
By Dan Swinhoe, Data Center Dynamics
January 20, 2025
Digital infrastructure investment firm D9 has sold its interest in a fiber pair of the upcoming 2Africa Pearls subsea cable.
D9 recently announced it had entered into a binding agreement for the divestment of its interests in EMIC-1 – part of 2Africa Pearls – with completion expected by March 2025. The buyer wasn’t disclosed.
The $42 million consideration reportedly represents a 15 percent discount on the company’s June 2024 valuation of the project.
“The project continues to be impacted by ongoing conflicts in the Red Sea area, which have led to an indefinite delay to its final construction completion,” D9 said. “The transaction also releases the group from $10m of additional construction commitments.”
D9 announced plans for the Europe Middle-East India Connect 1 (EMIC-1) system in July 2021, intending to spend £50 million ($61.41m) on a system linking Europe to India.
Rather than a self-built cable, the system was actually set to be part of the Pearls extension of the Meta-led 2Africa cable, with D9 acquiring a fiber pair on the system that it was to market as EMIC-1. The Red Sea portion of the 2Africa cable and Pearls extension are said be to delayed by ongoing issues off the coast of Yemen.
D9 has only been in operation for four years but is winding up shop. In March 2021, investment firm Triple Point raised £300 million ($365m) from an IPO through D9, with plans to acquire a number of digital infrastructure firms.
However, D9 announced in February of last year that it had decided to wind down its operations and sell off its assets following a strategic review.
In October, the company appointed InfraRed Capital Partners as its new investment manager to oversee the wind-down, months after D9 sold its European data center firm Verne to Ardian. January 2025 also saw D9 sell Aqua Comms to Exa Infrastructure.
