Il Senate it approved with 208 votes in favor and 44 abstentions the motion on the corporate structure of Telecom Italia. The text commits the Government to take action "with the utmost urgency" - also through a decree law that strengthens Consob's control powers - to add to the fixed threshold of 30%, already envisaged for the mandatory takeover bid, a second threshold "linked to the ascertained situation of de facto control".
The Executive will also have to "complete within 30 days the adoption of the implementing regulations on the exercise by the State of the golden rule in the case of companies of strategic interest, especially when infrastructures are at stake on which the country's security depends". The Telecom network is one of the strategic assets over which the Government will be able to exercise its special powers.
The motion was inspired the initiative of the Spanish Telefonica, which should rise from 46,2 to 66% of Telco (the holding that controls 22,4% of Telecom Italia) without however increasing its voting rights.
Massimo Mucchetti (Pd) and Altero Matteoli (Pdl) are the first signatories of the text, signed by all the groups except that of the Movimento 5 Stelle. The Government gave a favorable opinion.
The 26 September the Ministry of Economy had criticized Mucchetti's proposal, arguing that the recognition of a de facto threshold, therefore based on effective control and not on the capital held, would make any decision taken by Consob contestable: "Assessing control would be left to the administrative judge", he had said Undersecretary Alberto Giorgetti.
The Treasury has suggested an alternative route: to change the law on takeover bids, leaving the statutes of individual companies with the option of setting a threshold lower than the current 30% to trigger the obligation to bid.
Meanwhile, Telecom Italia shares managed to gain 1,5% later in the morning the request of the shareholder Findim to convene a meeting to reset the board of directors. In immediately following trading, however, the stock erased gains, eventually turning red by 0,5%.
