Wagram and Smith Square Partners advise HIG Capital for the sale of Xtera to Prysmian and Fincantieri.
Wagram and Smith Square Partners are delighted to announce that they have acted as the exclusive financial advisor to H.I.G. Capital on its entering into a binding agreement for the sale of Xtera to a joint venture led by Prysmian S.p.A. (80%) and Fincantieri S.p.A. (20%). The transaction was led by Sylvain Cotte and Christophe Tymen of Wagram and John Craven and Richard Banham of Smith Square Partners.
Headquartered in London, UK, Xtera is a leading provider of subsea telecom networks. The company operates in a market which is experiencing rapid growth, driven by global demand for bandwidth, the need for enhanced global connectivity and redundancy, and the rapid development of data centre traffic. Xtera’s focus on innovation and its track record of project delivery to its clients, including the U.S. Department of Defense and blue-chip telecom operators, position it as a trusted provider of turnkey systems. Xtera has delivered recently multiple turnkey projects, including the NO-UK submarine cable system, which achieved record-breaking capacity, and the TAM-1 system, which is expected to complete in 2026 and will span more than 7,000 km, linking Florida with Central America and the Caribbean.
Prysmian becomes a global player in submarine telecom thanks to this acquisition, building on its leadership in submarine energy solutions. The acquisition of Xtera will complement Prysmian’s leadership in submarine telecom production from its Nordenham (Germany) plant, its in-house acoustic and temperature monitoring solutions, and its world leading fleet of cable installation vessels and know-how. The partnership with Fincantieri will build on the already established relationship in cable installation vessels and will expand to new security-focused underwater services including guard vessels and drones. Prysmian’s one-stop shop for submarine telecom solutions will be deeply embedded in both Europe and the US, benefiting from a shared culture and supply chain across the two continents.
The sale of Xtera remains subject to regulatory approvals, and completion of the transaction is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2026.
This transaction places Wagram again as a leading advisory firm in the telecom submarine cable market and digital infrastructure space. Wagram acted recently as the exclusive financial advisor of the French Government (Government Shareholding Agency) for the acquisition of ASN from Nokia, the world leader in the design, manufacturing and deployment of telecom submarine cables.
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