EXA Consolidation & Acquisition Synergies

EXA now owns the Aqua Comm assets. These include fibre pairs on AEC-1, AEC-2, and Amitié. EXA also acquired two Irish Sea cables as part of the purchase. EXA managment emphasizes customer choice in their justification of the deal, but I think what makes it a good deal for EXA is price. It picked up lots of fibre pairs for a total price of around $40 million. Now subsea fibre IRU purchases often range from $30 million to $60 million per pair on life of system term deals. So this is a great distressed purchase. In the same ballpark as Columbia Venture’s purchase of the 360 Networks for $25 million, which was rebranded as Hibernia Atlantic.

I think the main question I would have for EXA’s operational staff is whether they can generate cost savings. Operational synergies are important to judging the success of an acquisition. This is where companies often fail in their consolidation efforts. GTT went bankrupt in 2021 after rapidly buying lots of network assets including Interoute, Hibernia, and others, but failing to achieve any integration at all. It was reportedly complete chaos.

EXA now owns Hibernia North and South and Express as well as four Irish Sea cables, fibre pairs on AEC-1, AEC-2, Marea, Dunant, Amitié, and Anjana. It is a comprehensive Trans-Atlantic and Irish Sea portfolio. EXA’s main competitor is Telxius.

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