Vivendi may take 20% stake in Telecom Italia in exchange for GVT
Vivendi, the French telecoms and media group, could take a 20% stake in Telecom Italia, the Italian language daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported.
The report cited a report in the online Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo saying that Vivendi would take the stake in exchange for agreeing to the merger of GVT, the Brazilian telecoms unit owned by Vivendi with Brasil, the Brazilian mobile telco owned by TI. The report said that if the plan comes to fruition, Vivendi would become the largest single shareholder in TI.
The report claimed that TI has put forward a three-stage proposal to Vivendi in order to gain control of GVT. The report said that the first stage would see the recapitalisation of Tim Brasil by TI. The second stage would involve the merger of Tim Brasil and GVT with TI seeing its present 67% stake in Tim Brasil falling to 50% in the new entity. The report said that tin he third stage Vivendi would take a stake directly in TI.
The report cited the Folha de S. Paulo article as saying that the TI offer is valued at around EUR 7bn compared to a EUR 6.7bn offer for GVT from Spanish telco Telefonica. However, the item said that the TI offer does not contain a cash component.
Telefonica is presently TI's largest shareholder, as previously reported.
Source Il Sole 24 Ore