OMS Group, a Malaysia-based company that lays and repairs subsea internet cables, has lined up $1.0315bn of loans and trade finance to help pay for four new cable-laying vessels due in 2027 and 2028. Of that total, $911.5m has been raised and a further $120m of trade facilities is still pending financial close, the company said in Singapore on 3 November.
The package mixes corporate and trade facilities with term loans backed by export credit agencies, the state-backed bodies that support a country’s exporters by insuring or guaranteeing loans. Atradius Dutch State Business, for the Netherlands, and Export Finance Norway (Eksfin) support the export credit part, which OMS says will fund the four ships. HSBC Singapore and Standard Chartered Bank led the deal as joint global coordinators, bookrunners and export credit coordinators, and KKR Capital Markets was corporate adviser.
In brief
- OMS Group has raised $911.5m, and another $120m of trade facilities is still pending financial close, which would take the package to $1.0315bn.
- The money backs four fibre-optic cable-laying vessels: two being built in Haiphong, Vietnam, and two with hulls under way in Gdynia, Poland.
- OMS says both the corporate and export credit parts were oversubscribed by more than two times. It gave no interest rates, terms or cost per ship.
What the OMS Group financing covers
OMS splits the deal in two. The corporate and trade facilities support its wider growth plans, while the export credit loans are tied to the four newbuilds. The company did not say how the $911.5m divides between the two parts, what the loans cost or when they must be repaid.
Demand was strong, according to OMS. It says the financing drew existing and new lenders from regional and international banking markets, and that both the corporate and export credit facilities were oversubscribed by more than two times. MarineLink reported that 14 lenders joined the corporate facilities and 12 joined the export credit facilities.
“With these four newbuild vessels, we aim to strengthen our cable-laying capacity and help customers build the networks that underpin global digital growth,” said Ronnie Lim, OMS Group’s chief executive. Edward Hui, HSBC’s head of export finance for Asia, said in the same release that the money “will support OMS’s fleet expansion and continued investment in its digital infrastructure business”.
OMS links the need for more ships to demand for subsea capacity from cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data centre growth.
Four cable-laying vessels on order in Vietnam and Poland
The release names all four ships. CS Genesis and CS Triumph are under construction in Haiphong, Vietnam, with delivery targeted for 2027 and 2028. CS Resilience and CS Alliance are under construction in Gdynia, Poland, and both are due in 2028.
The Polish pair is the better documented. Norwegian shipbuilder Ulstein says OMS signed contracts with it in January 2026 for two vessels of its SX252 design. The hulls are being built at the CRIST shipyard in Gdynia and will then move to Ulstein Verft in Norway for outfitting, commissioning and delivery. Each ship will be 130 metres long and 22 metres wide, and able to carry up to 6,500 tonnes of cable, according to Ulstein. Steel was cut for CS Resilience on 7 July, and its keel was laid on 17 September. Ulstein says the ships will use hybrid power and battery systems to cut fuel use and emissions, and OMS describes all four as fuel-efficient.
Eksfin is Norway’s export credit agency, and two of the ships will be completed in Norway. OMS did not say which agency backs which vessels.
The newbuilds will join an existing fleet. MarineLink and Light Reading both report that OMS runs five active cable-laying vessels today.
More cable ships matter for resilience as well as growth
OMS sells the deal as a bet on demand, but cable ships also decide how quickly networks recover when a cable breaks. That point was clear in Western Australia in October, when both direct cables to Singapore stayed down into November and the network operator AARNet said restoration depended partly on vessel availability. A larger fleet in Asia gives cable owners more options when that happens, though only once the ships are delivered.
Governments are also paying closer attention to what lies on the seabed. The UK has proposed up to 14 years in prison for deliberately damaging subsea cables, and new routes keep being planned, such as the Pisces subsea cable between Ireland and continental Europe, which is expected to be laid in 2028. Every new cable needs a ship to lay it and, over its life, ships to repair it.
There are limits to what the announcement shows. None of the four ships is finished, and their delivery dates are targets. The full $1.0315bn is not yet in place, because $120m is still pending close. And the financing figures come from OMS alone: no lender or export credit agency had published its own statement by the morning of 3 November.
Sources
- OMS Group: “OMS Group Raises USD 1.0315 Billion In Corporate and ECA-Backed Facilities”, 3 November 2026
- Ulstein: “Keel-laying milestone for Yno 328, a fibre-optic CLV newbuild for OMS”, 13 October 2026
- Ulstein: “Steel-cutting marks start of construction for first OMS fibre-optic cable-laying vessel”, 7 July 2026
- MarineLink: “OMS Group Secures $1.03B Financing To Expand Subsea”, 3 November 2026
- Light Reading (Gigi Onag): “Malaysia’s OMS Group raises $1.03B loan to expand subsea cable fleet”, 3 November 2026
Related stories
- Orange, Equitix and MDM Form a Joint Venture to Build Pisces, a Subsea Cable From Ireland to France, Spain and Portugal
- UK Proposes Up to 14 Years’ Jail for Subsea Cable Sabotage
- Perth-Singapore Cables to Stay Down Into November as ASC Repair Slips
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