Stop and go. Tim's Board of Directors postpones the examination of the Kkr offer for the copper secondary network to 31 August and approves the half-yearly accounts welcoming "with great favor acceleration of the Single Network project and will participate with enthusiasm - says the press release released from the board meeting on Tuesday late in the evening - in the work that the Government intends to start in the next few hours". CEO Guido Gubitosi has been given the mandate to continue talks with the government. The group comes to the negotiation with a Net income of 678 million (+23%), debts down by 1,697 billion in the first six months to 25,9 billion. It also halted the hemorrhaging of consumer landlines in the second quarter by keeping mobile lines stable. THE fiber customers increased by 500 thousand units. The Tim shares they are up sharply Wednesday morning, after Tuesday's rally (+6,28%).
Tim's press release arrives late Tuesday evening, at the end of a day that spared no surprises. The letter from ministers Roberto Gualtieri and Stefano Patuanelli arrived on the table of the board of directors who, according to press rumors, asked the president of Tim Salvatore Rossi to suspend the examination of theoffer presented by the KKR Infrastructure fund: 1,8 billion for 37,5% of the future copper network company to convert to optical fiber. The project - which the board of directors limited itself to "acknowledging favorably" - values the old network to be spun off at 7,7 billion (4,7 for equity, the rest in debt). The name of the new entity is FiberCop and Fastweb, Tim's current shareholder in FlashFiber (80 and 20 per cent each, respectively), would become part of it. Fastweb would enter the game by conferring its stake in the fiber and acquiring 4,5% of FiberCop.
But, as has been said, everything is at a standstill waiting for the negotiation on the single network to start the national broadband network which should involve CDP and Open Fiber. "Aware of the important project being examined by the council - wrote the two ministers referring to KKR's offer - we express the opportunity to evaluate the most appropriate ways to place the operation in this broader strategic context".
We will talk about it again at the end of the month, provided that it is possible by that date to define a real agreement that integrates the networks of Tim and Open Fiber whose points of view are still quite distant.
Returning to the semi-annual accounts, i revenues from services they were 7,3 billion, down 7,4%. "The revenue trend, in addition to being affected by the effects of the COVID emergency - explains the group note - reflects the rationalization of the product portfolio and the greater discipline in commercial processes started last year". L'Organic EBITDA was 3,5 billion euros in the half year (-6,9% on an annual basis, -6,4% in the second quarter with a margin of 46,1%). Equity contributed to the reduction of the debt cash flow for 978 million, the rest - the note continues - "is attributable to the partial monetization of the investment in INWIT which more than offset the payment of 316 million euros in dividends on TIM ordinary and savings shares".
The press release recalls the two key operations of the last period for Tim: on the one hand thebinding offer to purchase the mobile assets of the Brazilian Oi (with Vivo and Claro) increased to 16,5 billion; on the other the sale to Ardian Infrastructure of a minority stake in the holding company that holds TIM's stake in INWIT. The collection, concludes the press release, of 1,6 billion euro is expected by the end of the third quarter.
