By Corinne Reichert, ZDNet
April 6, 2017

Asia-Pacific fibre infrastructure company Superloop has announced the acquisition of submarine cable construction company SubPartners for $2.5 million.

The acquisition will occur via the issue of 1,451,869 fully paid ordinary shares in Superloop at an issue price of $2.255 per share.

According to Superloop, the acquisition will provide it with important APAC submarine cable capacity and assets across the region, including the newly announced Indigo subsea cable system connecting Sydney, Perth, Singapore, and Jakarta.

Being built alongside Google, Singtel, Telstra, AARNet, Indosat Ooredoo, and Alcatel Submarine Networks, the Indigo cable will span around 9,000km, with two fibre pairs and a design capacity of 18Tbps, and is expected to be completed by mid-2019.

Once the Indigo cable system is complete, Superloop said it will have access to 4.5Tbps-capacity fibre, which it will be able to increase over time.

Australian technology entrepreneur Bevan Slattery, who is the founder and CEO of both Superloop and SubPartners, said the subsea cables would connect with Superloop's existing metro fibre networks.

Shareholders will be asked to approve the issue of shares to Slattery, who already owns 80 percent of SubPartners and 28.8 percent of Superloop; should this not be approved, Slattery will be paid cash consideration of around $2 million for the acquisition.

As part of the acquisition, Superloop has guaranteed SubPartners' construction capital, operating, and maintenance commitments in relation to the Indigo subsea cable, which involves a total capex of around $35 million to $37 million out to FY20.

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