AFR-IX, a telecommunications company founded by Catalan engineers Norman Albi and Miguel Ángel Acero, yesterday inaugurated the Barcelona Cable Landing Station, a port that will give access to eight submarine fiber optic cables in which it has invested 10 million euros.
The facilities, located next to the three chimneys in Sant Adrià, will receive the first two cables before the end of the year, according to Albi, and also a third, called Medusa, which is led by AFR-IX itself, and which will involve an investment of 326 million euros of which the European Investment Bank contributes approximately half, because its 8,700 km (the longest cable in the Mediterranean) connects six countries in southern Europe with North Africa. The facilities initially have a surface area of 2,657 m2, but “they are ready to be expanded in a second phase”, acknowledged Albi.
The inauguration was attended by the Minister of Business and Employment, Roger Torrent, the Secretary of Digital Policies, David Ferrer and, in a personal capacity, the former Minister Jordi Puigneró, one of the promoters of the project. The mayor of Sant Adrià de Besòs, Filo Cañete, highlighted the impact that the fiber port will have for the city with the creation of quality employment. AFR-IX itself will move its Barcelona headquarters there, which employs around 40 people, but it will drag in other digital companies. Thus Interxion, a Dutch firm specialized in digital reality, has announced that it will open a data center a few meters away. And the German Aquila Capital, which will invest 300 million euros in a large data center in Cerdanyola del Vallès, has announced that it will connect directly with the port and its project will create around 2,700 jobs throughout Catalonia. According to David Ferrer, the boost that the new connectivity will give to the data center sector and the implementation of digital signatures could generate a rise in Catalan GDP of between 2% and 4% in four years.
AFR-IX, controlled 100% by its two founders, invoices 25 million euros per year, with an operating profit or EBITDA of 1.7 million. The firm has 115 employees, most of them in Africa: its business is currently focused on providing corporate telecommunications services in 40 African countries. The signature. Albi explained, is preparing to go public, surely for the first half of next year "but it will depend on the volatility of the stock markets." The purpose of the two founders is to take a minority percentage of the company to market and use that income to finance its growth.
