OMS Group Closes $1.03 Billion Loan to Grow Subsea Cable Fleet

Malaysia's OMS Group has closed a US$1.03 billion financing package to buy four new fiber-optic cable-laying vessels, with delivery expected in 2027 and 2028. The deal signals how demand for subsea connectivity, driven by cloud computing, AI and data center growth, is pulling shipyard capacity and lender money into the cable installation market.

The financing breaks into two parts. Term loan facilities total $911.5 million, backed by corporate, trade and export credit agency (ECA) support. A further $120 million in trade facilities is pending financial close.

What changes for the fleet?

OMS Group currently operates five active cable-laying vessels through its OMS Telco division. It has four new vessels under construction. Once the newbuilds arrive in 2027 and 2028, the fleet will effectively double, lifting the group's installation capacity at a time when cable system orders are accelerating.

CEO Ronnie Lim framed the deal as capacity insurance. "This financing supports our long-term growth plans and continued investments in the group's end-to-end digital infrastructure capabilities," Lim said. "With these four newbuild vessels, we aim to strengthen our cable-laying capacity and help customers build the networks that underpin global digital growth."

That is a vendor-side claim, but the underlying commercial logic is straightforward. More cables under contract require more ships able to lay them, and cable-laying vessels are scarce, long-lead assets. Operators planning transoceanic routes in the late 2020s will watch fleet expansion at installers such as OMS closely.

Who arranged and backed the deal?

HSBC Singapore and Standard Chartered Bank acted as joint global coordinators, bookrunners and ECA coordinators. KKR Capital Markets served as corporate adviser. Two export credit agencies — Atradius Dutch State Business and Export Finance Norway — will support the vessel financing.

The ECA involvement matters for practitioners. Export credit backing typically lowers financing costs for shipbuilding programs and extends tenors beyond what commercial banks alone would offer, which is why vessel orders of this size usually route through agencies tied to the shipyards' home countries.

OMS Group reported strong participation from regional and international banking markets, including existing partners and new lenders. Demand exceeded supply by a wide margin.

"Both the corporate and ECA-backed facilities were oversubscribed by more than two times, reflecting broad-based lender confidence in the Group and its growth plans," the company stated.

For context, oversubscription at more than two times means lenders committed roughly double the available facility amount — an unusually strong signal for a mid-sized infrastructure services borrower and a marker of how banks now price exposure to digital infrastructure supply chains.

OMS added that the corporate and ECA-backed facilities were structured through a coordinated process, tailored to the industry's nature and the group's expansion plans.

How the banks read the market

Standard Chartered, which coordinated the transaction, tied the loan to the broader build-out of digital infrastructure. Abhishek Pandey, global head of transportation finance at Standard Chartered, said: "This transaction demonstrates how deep sector expertise, strategic advisory, structured solutions and strong international partnership can come together to support our clients' long-term investment plans."

Pandey added: "OMS Group is well positioned to capture the significant opportunities arising from the continued expansion of global digital infrastructure."

That is bank marketing language, but it reflects a real trend. Subsea cable investment has surged as hyperscalers and data center operators fund new routes across Asia and beyond, and Malaysia has positioned itself as a beneficiary of that traffic.

The next milestones are concrete: financial close on the $120 million trade facilities, and vessel deliveries in 2027 and 2028, when OMS Group's expanded fleet will meet the cable-laying demand now queuing in the pipeline.