When you cut dividends to shareholders, the Stock Exchange, which by definition is short-sighted, never applauds you even if you reduce debts, but Franco Bernabè, executive chairman of Telecom Italia, is not a manager who lets himself be frightened by the emotional reactions of the markets . He has always done this and has always gone against the tide, ever since the days of ENI and the Telecom takeover bid. He did the same with the new industrial plan that he launched last Friday.
Piazza Affari reacted badly, picking the title but making it go back up in part towards the end. But Bernabè is convinced that in the end the substance of the plan will count and that the market will understand. And in fact the one launched by Telecom's number one is not a small bet, which can be summed up in four heavy words: less dividends and less debt for more investments for more development. Taking up the challenge of growth in full recession is no small feat but Telecom Italia must think globally, with an eye not only to the recovery that will come in Italy but also to South America, Brazil and Argentina where the group, despite infinite difficulties , grows and has good prospects ahead.
For now, Bernabè has to take into account the bad mood of the markets and of Telco's reference shareholders, who certainly don't like the coupon cut. However, he goes his own way and continues the painstaking work of reducing the debt by another 2 billion, generated by the unfortunate Gnutti-Colaninno takeover bid and consolidated by the subsequent Telecom-Tim merger, even if the launch of a 3 billion hybrid bond will do it again temporarily retrace to strengthen the group's assets without resorting to capital increases and without suffering lethal downgrades from rating agencies. Let's not forget that the sale of TI Media is also on the horizon (it will be discussed again in the board of directors on February 18), for which – in addition to the sure offers from Clessidra and Cairo – Diego's final breakthrough could emerge Della Valle, a great friend of the director of the La7 news, Enrico Mentana. Bernabè does not want to sell off the only quality TV on the Italian scene and judges the offers received so far insufficient, but he is the first to realize that the group's debt must also be reduced in this way and stop the bleeding of resources that the TV has always absorbed.
Then, in the background, the reorganization of the network remains which, beyond the technological and market aspects, can offer Telecom the opportunity to partially deconsolidate the debt. It is in this context that Bernabè plays the investment and development card without forgetting that the real competitors of a large European telecommunications group are no longer France Telecom or British Telecom but the Over the top, the Internet giants from Google to Amazon , Facebook, Apple and so on who do business without investing in the network. "We have planned - explains Bernabè - 9 billion investments in Italy in the three-year period 2013-5 and 1,3 billion a year in Brazil" because "we want to continue the work of modernizing both fixed and mobile networks". It is no mean feat but for a country too often resigned and withdrawn into itself and it is already a good sign. Upstream.
