The story Telecom - Open Fiber it could be at a turning point. According to some press leaks, the Board of Tim is considering the possibility of buy 50% of Open Fiber today in the hands of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (the other half belongs to Enel). The draft agreement should not reach the Council in the meeting of 27 June, but more likely in that of XNUMX August.
As part of the operation, Telecom would sell CDP a further share of its capital and merge with Flash Fiber, the joint venture with Fastweb for the development of the fiber optic network. Of the post-merger company, Tim should directly control two-thirds of the capital.
But how much money is at stake? According to what he writes La Repubblica, Cdp and Telecom would have found an agreement on the valuation of Open Fiber in the order of 2 billion for 100%. However, the price could also change on the basis of the exchange of treasury shares with which Tim would pay the Cassa.
If all goes as planned, Telecom could call a meeting in September to give the green light to the capital increase necessary for the operation, which obviously is anything but simple.
At the end of the operation, CDP would become Tim's first shareholder (of which it already holds 9,9%), with a share that is in any case lower than the takeover bid threshold, but sufficient to ask to join the board. Or in any case to reason on a par with Vivendi, Telecom's current largest shareholder with 23,9% who would look favorably on the change of governance.
Last month, the leaders of the French group received the president and CEO of CDP, Massimo Tononi and Fabrizio Palermo in Paris, precisely to talk about the Open Fiber deal and the possible consequences for the management of Telecom.
Dense fog, however, on the other 50% of Open Fiber, the one in the hands of Enel. The electricity group would have decided to sell, but at a price that neither CDP nor Tim would be willing to pay.
With respect to the objective of merging Telecom with Open Fiber as a first step to subsequently integrate the networks, however, there are essentially three unknowns: 1) Vivendi's real attitude at the Telecom assembly: will it initiate the corporate merger or will it his blocking minority cards? 2) what will the other telephone operators do – from Vodafone to Wind – in the face of the creation of a near-monopoly like Tim and Open? Will they not appeal to oppose the mega-deal? 3) what will the Antitrust say to a company that unifies, at least initially, networks and services?
However things go, In the meantime, Open Fiber has strengthened its collaboration with the group Ivy. After the agreement signed in 2017 and the two contracts for the use of the network infrastructures managed by the multi-utility in the areas served, in particular in the municipalities of Modena and Imola, a further twenty-year agreement was recently signed, which will allow Open Fiber to connect to the existing Acantho infrastructure to encourage the development of ultra-broadband services.
