The acquisition is a significant expansion of Exa’s strategic assets in Southeastern Europe, the company said in a release.
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The deal was facilitated by DB Capital as lead advisors to the majority shareholder of GCN alongside KND Partnership Ltd and Softia Connect EAD, one of the sellers.
"The GCN network consists of over 2,500km of owned duct and cable connecting Sofia with all the borders neighbouring Bulgaria as well as the Black Sea coast cities of Balchik, Varna and Burgas,” said Steve Roberts, SVP of network investments and products at Exa Infrastructure.
“Each of these locations are strategically important for existing and planned subsea cables, creating a natural east-west corridor.”
“Exa Infrastructure also gains 100km of metro network connecting key data centres and business zones within Sofia.
“By adding the GCN assets into our expanding network, we continue to offer our customers more route options and more scalability traffic into and around Europe."
Completion is subject to customary conditions and is expected to be completed in Q4, 2024.
As a result of the deal, Exa Infrastructure now owns 155,000km of fibre network infrastructure across 37 countries, strengthening its position as the largest owned network connecting Europe to the rest of the world.
With the addition of GCN's network, Exa will expand its extensive footprint into the strategically important region of Southeastern Europe, providing key access to international interconnection points in Turkey, Greece, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia and Georgia.
This region has grown in significance due to the traffic volumes entering Europe from Asia and the Middle East, and also due to the greater focus on network redundancy and alternative route provisioning given the lack of diversity around the Red Sea.
Jim Fagan, CEO at Exa Infrastructure added: "This acquisition further extends our network presence in South-Eastern Europe and continues to differentiate our capabilities in serving customers for their critical infrastructure needs across the breadth of Europe.
“We have near term plans to expand our network both organically and through acquisition to bring more value, options and services to our customers in an ever-changing digital world."
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