KKR commits $400m to Malaysia's OMS Group

Founded in 1988, OMS is a neutral provider of integrated services for submarine fibre-optic cable systems, including installation, procurement, and maintenance. It is one of the largest independent operators in this space, with assets spanning ships, barges, and cable landing stations. Clients include subsea equipment providers, large-scale cloud service providers, and telecom companies.

The plan is to expand the fleet and add capabilities, while investing in cable landing stations and subsea cable routes to meet fast-growing demand in cross-border data transmissions. KKR said in a statement that it expects this effort to benefit from long-term secular tailwinds in the region related to data consumption, enterprise cloud needs, digitalisation by governments, and digitalisation of economies.

KKR is making this investment primarily from its Asia infrastructure strategy. It reached a first close of USD 6bn on its second Asia infrastructure fund last October; its first Asia fund for the asset class closed on USD 3.9bn in early 2021.

The private equity firm was active in this space as recently as last month when it agreed to acquire a 20% stake in Singtel’s Asia data centre business for SGD 1.1bn (USD 800m). In 2020, it invested an undisclosed sum in Philippines-based telecom operator Pinnacle Towers with a view to helping it expand into a regional platform.

KKR recently noted that Southeast Asia’s data centre market is expected to grow by 17% over the next five years compared to 12% for the rest of the world, with up to USD 13bn in investments projected to flow into the region. It flagged Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand as potentially the fastest-growing markets.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Infrastructure
• Expansion
• Malaysia
• KKR
• digitalization