Digital9 Infrastructure plans £100 million raise

The new owner of transatlantic cables that form the backbone of the internet has revealed plans to secure another £100 million towards vital communication assets.

Digital9 Infrastructure will give retail investors the chance to participate in the fundraising, which comes just over a month after its stock market debut pulled in £300 million.

A large chunk of the IPO proceeds went on the April purchase of Aqua Comms, which owns and operates 14,300km of transatlantic sub-sea fibre systems. Customers of Aqua’s two cables include Facebook, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Digital9’s investment manager Triple Point has identified further opportunities spanning European data centres, terrestrial fibre platforms and a UK wireless infrastructure business, as well as further deals involving subsea fibre.

One of the driving forces for the Digital9 investment trust is to build cables to parts of the world with supercheap renewable energy and house data centres there.

Triple Point believes there are about £600 million of opportunities capable of completion within the next year, prompting the placing of new shares at 105p — a 7% discount on Friday’s closing price.