Keppel bags fourth fibre pair deal on Bifrost Cable System with ‘global technology leader’

[SINGAPORE] Asset manager Keppel said on Wednesday (Jun 17) that it has secured a deal for the fourth out of five fibre pairs on the Bifrost Cable System.

The agreement was inked via an indefeasible right of use (IRU) contract through Keppel’s connectivity division. An IRU is a long-term, irrevocable contract that grants a customer exclusive and secure access to a portion of network capacity.

Keppel did not specify the other party involved in the deal, describing it only as a “global technology leader”.

The Bifrost Cable System is a transpacific cable spanning more than 20,000 km that connects Singapore to the West Coast of the US via the Java Sea and Celebes Sea.

The system supports artificial intelligence workloads and cloud-native platforms. It was declared “ready for service” in October 2025 and began carrying commercial traffic that December.

Manjot Singh Mann, CEO of Keppel’s connectivity division, said that cloud computing, AI and digitalisation are “accelerating demand for critical infrastructure, such as subsea cables, that underpins the digital economy”.

Keppel said that the transaction is not expected to have any material impact on its net tangible assets per share or earnings per share for the current financial year.

The deal follows another struck with global telecommunications company Telstra to lease a fibre pair on the Bifrost Cable System for 25 years.

Keppel’s investment in the Bifrost fibre pairs is “held through a 40-60 joint venture with its private fund co-investors”, in line with its “asset-light” model.

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The group said that it will “continue to operate and maintain the fibre pairs, which is expected to generate stable long-term recurring income over 25 years”.

“Keppel expects to achieve an internal rate of return of about 30 per cent for the overall Bifrost project,” it added.

The group is in “active discussions” for the signing of an IRU agreement for the fifth fibre pair on Bifrost. It said that it is also “exploring and progressing well to finalise the development of its next cable system".

Shares of Keppel were trading at S$11.42 as at 2.56 pm on Wednesday, S$0.21 or 1.9 per cent higher, after the news.