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Surprisingly, the board of directors met for the quarterly put to the vote the conversion project. To shareholders without voting rights is offered with one ordinary share swap, adding almost 10 cents and waiving privilege on the coupon in order to vote. Conversion may hinder the climb of the French group TLC. Pending Actions nell'afterhours

MILAN - The board of Telecom Italy met to approve the accounts of the third quarter, surprisingly put to the vote the draft conversion of savings shares into ordinary fee. The transaction, which had already been investigated several times during the management of Franco Bernabe, expected to be offered to members without voting rights of concambiare their title with one ordinary adding just under 10 euro cents and thus giving up the privilege dividend. The Stock Exchange has suspended from trading securities evening.

Telecom Italy for the operation creates value in so many ways. First, the company will collect about 600 million euro from the market; second - eliminating 166 million extra coupons related to savings shares and discounting this value to the weighted average cost of capital - the group that is to save around 2.3 billion. And so, between collection and lower costs, Telecom creates about 2.9 billion greater value of 19 billion shares (assuming full conversion of rnc in ordinary) translates to about 15 cents more per share. The transaction must be approved by the shareholders ordinary Telecom, with a two-thirds majority.

But Telecom will not only be richer, will be even bigger and with much floating, a key requirement to fit into European indices of capitalization and liquidity, hence the Italian group had been excluded when coinciding with the peak of the crisis had slipped to a market value of ordinary shares and savings of only 13 billion euro

Currently the share capital of the group consists of 13.5 billion ordinary shares and 6 billion non-convertible savings shares, thus a full conversion would have the effect to be a part of creating about 15 cents of value but on the other to dilute 31 % voting rights of existing shareholders. It is not a minor detail in a time when the company is the subject of interest of several foreign groups including the media giant Vivendi (a former partner at 20.5% of the capital) and the French entrepreneur Xavier Niel (which purchased options on 15.2% of the capital). So if the operation conversion was successful, the participation of Vivendi would drop to about 14% of the ordinary share capital of the new Telecom while for Niel you should check if this extraordinary event could trigger the clauses of early conversion options.

Elliott Capital Advisors, the hedge fund, and Equinox Energy Capital, a private investment firm, has hired Jefferies to advise on the sale of their 83MW UK solar portfolio, two sources have said.

The deal is in advanced stages and is expected to close by the start of 2016, both sources said. The portfolio is valued at about GBP 150m, a sector banker added.

The portfolio comprises of six operational assets: Rowles Solar Park (12.8MW) in Oxfordshire; Aspatria (18.3MW) in Cumbria; Radstone (5.2MW) in Northamptonshire; Flit Solar Park (10.5MW) in Oxfordshire; Gaultney Solar Park (21.6MW) in Northamptonshire; and Egmanton Solar Park (14.1MW) in Nottinghamshire. They were developed by Equinox Energy Capital, and joint-owned by the two firms, the first source said.

There are several buyers still in the process, and interest has mainly come from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and infrastructure funds, the second source said. The portfolio will definitely be sold as a whole, the second source added.

Elliot Capital Advisors and Jefferies declined to comment. Equinox did not respond to a request for comment.

Volkswagen is going to radically overhaul its structure and organization by early next year, sources have told Handelsblatt.

The company’s subsidiaries will be separated out from its core business and streamlined. Its design department, headed by Walter de Silva, which currently uses up €100 million a year, will be slimmed down. Marketing budgets will also be cut: there will be no more lavish parties on the eve of important trade fairs in Frankfurt, Geneva and China. These cuts are expected to save some €24 million.

Chief executive Matthias Müller is also expected to announce a “Strategy 2025” plan by next year that will result in a reorganization of Volkswagen’s entire passenger car business. “We will question what we do with each brand in each region,” a manager told Handelsbatt.

At the moment, Seat, Skoda, Audi and Volkswagen brands often compete with each other in the same regions. This strategy was aimed at winning more customers, but the manager said this has come at the expense of profitability, “and therefore it has to end.”

{https://global.handelsblatt.com/breaking/sources-volkswagen-to-radically-overhaul-structure}