With an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors, chaired by Giovanni Gorno Tempini, Cassa depositi e prestiti (CDP) gave the green light for the presentation of a non-binding offer by Cdp Equity, together with Macquarie Asset Management, “for the purchase of the newly established Netco Tim, which will include the infrastructural network and the shareholding in Sparkle“. The validity term of the offer is set at 31 March and therefore the battle over the future of the Tim network is in full swing, considering that from tomorrow the leading Italian telephone company will find two offers on the table: that of Cdp-Macquarie and that, previously presented, of the American fund kkr.
TIM NETWORK: HOW MUCH IS THE NEW OFFER?
From the rumors filtered in the last few hours, the Cdp-Macquarie offer would start from a more convenient basis for Tim than that of Kkr: both have a value of around 20 billion euros but that of Cdp-Macquarie is more liquid because it has a component cash of 10 billion, 8 billion of debt plus an earn-out of 2 billion payable on the occurrence of certain conditions.
In the face of the new Cdp-Macquarie offer, however, two unknowns remain: the first concerns theAntitrust and the second Vivendi, who is Tim's largest shareholder with a stake of almost 24% but is not present on the board of directors of the telephone company chaired by Salvatore Rossi and led by Peter Labriola. On the first point it is likely that Cassa depositi e prestiti has carried out the necessary preliminary checks with respect to the Antitrust guidelines but it should be remembered that, in addition to its current 10% stake in Tim, CDP together with Macquarie already controls the competing network of Open Fiber (60% CDP and 40% Australian). As for Vivendi, its goal has always been to recover, at least in part, the huge potential losses of around 3 billion of its investment in Tim by claiming 31 billion for the sale of the Tim network: how will the French group behave in the assembly who will have to decide on the transfer of the network we will see.
TIM NETWORK: HOW WILL THE NEW PURCHASE OFFER BE EVALUATED BY THE STOCK EXCHANGE?
However, one thing is certain and that is that the battle over the future of the Tim network is finally in full swing and that by March it will be clear which of the two offers will win. But already tomorrow it will be interesting to see how the Stock Exchange, which in 2023 has already rewarded the Tim share with a spectacular rise of 42,8%, will evaluate the new offer for the network of the largest Italian telephone company.
