Telecom Italia backs Poste Italiane takeover bid
Cash and paper offer would give state-controlled postal service full control of telecoms group
The board of Telecom Italia has accepted a cash and stock bid from Poste Italiane that would give the state-controlled postal service full control of the telecoms group.
Telecom Italia said on Saturday that it deemed the offer of €1.67 in cash and 0.218 newly issued Poste ordinary shares for each Telecom Italia ordinary share tendered to be fair.
The bid, which was originally valued around €10.8bn, could now be worth around €13bn based on Poste Italiane’s closing share price of €27.84 on Friday.
The offer is the latest in a wave of deals across European telecoms groups, as companies have looked to gain scale to attract further investment. In June, a consortium of three French mobile operators announced a deal to acquire SFR for €20.35bn, while UK operators Vodafone and Three combined last year.
The lack of a premium on Telecom Italia’s share price in the original bid surprised some analysts, who said Poste might be forced to increase its offer to win acceptance.
In April, Poste Italiane boss Matteo Del Fante defended the offer in an interview with the FT, saying the company, which already owns about 20 per cent stake in Telecom Italia, would be a good owner of TIM.
“Since we acquired the TIM stake the company outperformed . . . we are confident we deserve the same trust now that we have launched the takeover offer,” he said.
Italy’s state fund Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and the Treasury own a combined 65 per cent stake in Poste Italiane, which has expanded into logistics, cloud computing services and banking to boost its revenues and profits in recent years.
Telecom Italia, once a state monopoly, was privatised in 1997. Until recently, it struggled with a heavy debt load. But in 2024, it sold its Italian fixed-line network infrastructure to private equity firm KKR in a €22bn deal, allowing it to cut its borrowings.
It is the third-largest mobile operator in Italy by number of customers, after Vodafone and WindTre. It is also the third largest in Brazil.