Telstra announced today that it will buy Asian undersea cable operator Pacnet for $697 million to boost its expansion in Asia.
In a statement released this morning, Telstra said that the acquisition of Singapore- and Hong Kong-headquartered Pacnet gives Telstra ownership of an extensive range of services including SDN, an expanded data centre network, more submarine cables, and major customers across the region.
The acquisition also includes interests in Pacnet’s China joint venture, PBS, which is licensed to operate a domestic IPVPN and provide data center services in most major provinces in China.
Telstra said the combined entity would become a leader in the Asia service provider market, and the company’s global enterprises and services business in the region would almost double in size.
“Asia is an important part of our growth strategy,” said Telstra CEO David Thodey in the statement. “We believe this acquisition will help us become a leading provider of enterprise services to multinational companies and carriers in the region.”
“The enterprise services market is evolving rapidly and Pacnet will strengthen our networks, data centers, and submarine networks, as well as boosting our service offerings and people capabilities.”
Pacnet increases the scale and scope of Telstra’s assets which can be used as a platform to scale and expand leading solutions such as unified cloud, unified communications, managed network services and security services, said Thodey.