Who expected that, in the middle of theTakeover bid KKR in progress and on the eve of a fiery Tim's board of directors, Cassa depositi e prestiti, which is the second largest shareholder of the main Italian telephone company, could issue a trenchant pronouncement on the near future of the incumbent of the TLCs on the occasion of the CDP's new 2022-24 strategic plan he will have had to reconsider. The new CEO of CDP, Dario Scannapieco, had a good time saying that, in open markets, he couldn't talk about a listed company like Tim, but he didn't disappoint expectations at all because, in presenting the new CDP plan, he launched messages that were anything but obvious and in some cases decidedly innovative. One also concerns telecommunications – and especially the equity investments in Tim and Open Fiber -, the others highlight a dynamic management of equity, the selectivity of the Cassa's interventions and a clear definition of what the role of the CDP itself should be flywheel of the Italian economy in the era of the PNRR.
The novelty that also concerns telecommunications derives from the way in which the Cdp intends to manage equity and the clear distinction, expressed by Scannapieco, between shareholdings considered strategic, "where CDP will maintain a stable shareholder role overseeing infrastructure or assets relevant to the country" and the so-called "purposeful interventions“, “where the commitment is aimed at the growth or stabilization of companies in key sectors, but with a logic of exit and capital rotation”. Raise your hand if you think that holdings in CDP's telecommunications are not strategic. They certainly are and therefore – this Scannapieco wanted to imply – they will remain stable even if, with a cool head and when the takeover bid emergency is concluded in one way or another, it will be necessary to think about how to harmonize two shareholdings (in Tim and in Open Fiber) potentially in conflict with each other and decide whether it is better to relaunch the single network with a Tim no longer vertically integrated but revisited by a division between network and services or to focus on a model with two network infrastructures that are competitive but also collaborative. Problems of great strategic importance that remain on the table but whose solution is not for today.
La dynamic management of equity it is an essential point of the new Cassa but it is not the only one and Scannapieco was very effective when he outlined his new role, which is indeed made up of muscles but also of brains. Which translated, means putting in place an enormous financial potential and the right technical skills capable of engaging directly 65 billion in a three-year period and to mobilize with the third-party contributions up to 128 billion increasingly becoming the driving force of the Italian economy and the bank of the Pnrr in investments which, together with the reforms, can give continuity to the recovery. Muscles and brains or rather financial resources and technical skills at the service of the growth of the country which cannot waste the unrepeatable opportunity for a real breakthrough thanks to the authority of Prime Minister Draghi but also to the new course of Europe.
What then is the role of the new Cassa in this picture? AND' an additional and complementary role with respect to the market, selective in its interventions, and different from that of the banks because it does not only look at the generation of profits but Cdp is above all attentive to the impact that its action generates on an economic, social, occupational and environmental level. The CDP cannot say yes to everyone because it has the demanding task of managing the postal savings of Italians in the best possible way and therefore of selecting its interventions in the most efficient way possible, but there is a yes that it wants to say and that it will say forcefully: and is that of finance development.
