JGA North, a private cable with RTI Connectivity (RTI) as the sole investor, is the northern segment of the Japan-Guam-Australia Cable System between Minami-Boso, Japan and Piti, Guam.
It was manufactured and built by NEC and was funded by proceeds from Japanese financial institutions, including the Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan's ICT and Postal Services Inc. (Japan ICT Fund) and NEC Capital Solutions.
The cable was declared completed by RTI and NEC in July 2020, however according to a report by CommsDay, creditors placed its Singapore holding company and affiliated entities into receivership four months ago.
According to that report, a company formed by major Japanese banks who had financed the cable successfully applied to the Singapore High Court to place the assets of RTI Connectivity, RTI JGA Cable and related trust entities into receivership under Kroll Singapore.
It was also reported that debt owed to the banks had been sold-on for an unknown amount to I Squared Capital, a Miami-based global infrastructure fund.
Lightstorm, a pan-Asia cloud network infrastructure platform owned by I Squared Capital, announced yesterday that it has signed asset purchase agreements with court-appointed receivers in both Delaware and Singapore to acquire JGA North and portions of the JGA South and SEA-US cable.
JGA South is the southern segment of the RTI system and provides connectivity between Piti, Guam, the Sunshine Coast and Sydney. It was manufactured and co-built by NEC and Alcatel Submarine Network (ASN).
SEA-US is owned by RTI alongside GTA TeleGuam, Globe Telecom, Hawaiian Telcom and Telin. It was also supplied by NEC and is 14,500 km in length.
“I Squared Capital portfolio companies already operate a formidable global network, and their acquisition of leading subsea cables positions the Lightstorm Group for unprecedented future growth” said RTI Cable’s founder and former CEO Russ Matulich.
“It is a privilege to have worked alongside many of the industry’s best to achieve something more important than ourselves, and I look forward to celebrating their future achievements.”
The three cables have total length of around 21,000 km and offer 64Tbps allocated capacity.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year, until which time the receivers in Delaware and Singapore will continue managing the companies.
David Zimmer, the lead of Lightstorm’s international subsea connectivity business, has been appointed as interim-CEO to assist with the day-to-day operations during the transition phase until all necessary regulatory approvals are obtained,
"We are thrilled to integrate these high-value subsea cables into our platform,” said Amajit Gupta, CEO and MD of Lightstorm.
“This acquisition will fortify our position as a leading cloud network infrastructure provider and expand our geographic presence and service offerings by linking through expanded subsea assets such as this cable system. We are excited to build upon RTI Cable’s extraordinary achievements and wish Russ well in his future endeavours.”
Lightstorm was initially launched in 2020, under the SmartNet brand, which was built to be a carrier-neutral, low latency and DCI-focused fiber network in India.
As of today, SmartNet has expanded into seven major cities across India with 24,000km of route fibre connected to approximately 60 data centres.
Lightstorm expanded into Indonesia in 2022 with similar ambitions to first build 1,000km of fibre and connect 40 data centres in Greater Jakarta.
In December last year, its Indonesian division partnered with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson to acquire the fibre assets of MNC Play, a fibre-to-the-home network services provider in Indonesia.
This new venture owns and manages more than 15,000km of fibre, across 10 major Indonesian cities covering more than 1.5 million homes.
Looking forward, Lightstorm said it will continue expanding its geographical coverage to other South East Asian and Middle East countries.
It said it aims to enrich its products and services to ultimately establish a leading next-gen cloud network infrastructure platform with assets across APAC and interconnect them with the US West Coast.
