Aussie investment firm Palisade buys into Hawaiki

Australian infrastructure investment firm, Palisade Investment Partners, will take a "significant" ownership interest in the Hawaiki cable.

The percentage Palisade will hold has not been revealed, but the company describes itself as operating "under the ‘supported independence’ model of the Pinnacle Investment Management Group which allows our investment executives to focus solely on investment acquisition and management."

Palisade is acquiring the interest in Hawaiki on behalf of two direct investment mandate clients and Palisade’s Diversified Infrastructure Fund (PDIF).  They will join existing investors in the project, including Remi Galasso, the founder and CEO of Hawaiki, Sir Eion Edgar, Malcolm Dick and Greg Tomlinson.

Hawaiki said the deal would allow it and Palisade "to jointly explore investment in future data infrastructure developments."

Palisade managing director and CEO, Roger Lloyd, said a key part of Palisade’s strategy was to seek exposure to the data infrastructure sector, "which we believe offers substantial opportunities as our dependency on data and global connectivity continually increases.”

He said the transaction had been structured "to support Hawaiki’s growth and deliver an attractive risk/return profile for our investors, and provides substantial diversification benefits relative to the existing assets in our investors’ portfolios.”

The Hawaiki cable was commissioned on 20 July 2018 and has entered into capacity contracts with a number of users to date, including Amazon Web Services. The cable was constructed and laid by TE SubCom, a leader in undersea communications technology.

Palisade was advised by Venture Advisory and DLA Piper on the transaction. Hawaiki was advised by Natixis and Missingham Law. The deal will require regulatory approvals in the USA.