"Pacific Fibre hoped to rival the Southern Cross Cable Networks' pipe, which is the only link transporting internet traffic in and out of New Zealand. The second cable would bring competition to the market and bring the price of international internet capacity down, Pacific Fibre argued"
"Southern Cross has built up the bandwidth speed on its cable network to 40 gigabits a second from 2.5 Gbps a decade ago, and expects it to increase to 100 Gbps by the end of this year, rising to 400 Gbps in two years"
"Pacific Fibre shut up shop after it failed to attract the $400 million it needed to fund the project, leaving Southern Cross Cable the only international cable network operating in New Zealand"
I am surprised by this failure. I think many others are as well. Not in hindsight, but that is the benefit of hindsight.
Obvious questions:
- There was no public offer component therefore there was not much discussion of the risks. Was that a mistake in hindsight?
- Was the failure plain short sightedness on the part of potential NZ infrastructure investors?
- Is this the biggest greenfield capital raising in NZ for many years? I think it is unusual in this regard.
- Were there really good reasons for not investing?
Trusted
