News
Consortium’s bid for Telecom Italia’s towers business makes strategic sense, but comes in below firm’s closing share price on Thursday.
The Cellnex-F2i consortium remains the front runner to acquire a stake in Telecom Italia’s towers business INWIT, having submitted an offer worth €4.35-€4.50 per share, it emerged this week.
Given that INWIT’s shares closed at €4.55 on Thursday, the bid might be too low for Telecom Italia, Reuters cited unnamed sources as saying.
However, the Spanish-Italian consortium is still seen as the most likely buyer because the cost-savings generated by merging the businesses would come it at around €1 billion, the newswire said.
According to the sources, Cellnex-F2i has offered to buy 45% of INWIT, which would ultimately lead to it launching a mandatory takeover offer for the remainder, as required by Italian law once the 30% ownership threshold is breached.
EI Towers, one of the other companies in the running to take over INWIT, has submitted an offer to buy just under 30% in order to avoid that situation. However, even if its bid is higher than that of Cellnex-F2i, it will be strategically less attractive to Telecom Italia, one of the sources said.
American Tower has also made an offer for INWIT. At this stage, all bids are non-binding. Final offers are expected in mid-March, with Telecom Italia keen to close the deal by the end of June.
As it stands, Telecom Italia holds 60% of INWIT, having floated 40% last year.
Late last year Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano indicated that he was willing to sell off a sizeable stake in the company, but would like to retain 15%-20% and representation on the board.
However, this could include the Italian incumbent taking a stake in any new company that emerges, should INWIT merge with another towers company.
