The takeover bid, the public purchase and exchange offer, of Poste Italiane for Tim officially begins today 20 July. The state-controlled company wants to buy the former telecommunications monopolist, which is in a complex situation after selling the physical network to the KKR fund in 2024.
Poste has released the takeover document, which envisages a mixed offer of cash and shares. The papers also explain what will happen to Tim if the offer is successful, both from the point of view of employment and from the point of view of users.
Poste started buying Tim
The offer document arrived yesterday, Sunday 19 July, after the operation with which Poste wants to buy Tim received a sudden acceleration in the last week thanks to:
- to the approval of the Bank of Italy;
- given the green light by Consob, the supervisory authority of the Italian Stock Exchange.
The result will depend on reaching a threshold: 66.67% of the shares must be in the hands of Poste by 11 September. Otherwise, the state-controlled company may abandon completing the operation.
Poste’s offer for Tim
In detail, the offer consists of two parts for each share that Poste wants to purchase:
- 1.67 euros;
- 0.218 ordinary shares of Poste Italiane.
In the document, Poste presents an example of how the purchase of Tim shares could take shape in practice: for 500 shares of the former monopolist, Poste offers 109 own shares and 835 euros. A Tim share was worth 7.80 euros at the close of Friday 17th, while a Poste share was worth 27.84.
However, it must be considered that since the takeover bid was announced, Tim’s shares have grown in value by 30%. Furthermore, the shares with which Poste will pay for those of Tim will be newly issued and this will decrease the value of each individual security.
What will happen to Tim if the bid is successful
In the acquisition prospectus, Poste also provided an idea of the so-called “synergies”, the opportunities that the merger will provide to the two companies, quantifying them at 700 million euros.
However, Poste’s objective is clear: Tim will exit the Italian stock exchange if the operation is successful. In technical jargon we talk about delisting. The project sees TIM as “The Connecting Platform”, a network of payment, logistics, telecommunications and energy services. The company would therefore also incorporate part of the Post Office services that do not have to do with postal activity.
What happens to Tim users after the acquisition
However, Poste has clarified that it has not yet decided in detail what will happen to Tim after the delisting: “The offeror, as of the date of the offer document, has not taken any decisions regarding any future extraordinary operations relating to the issuer” writes the company in the document.
Users will most likely see a growing integration of Poste and Tim services in the period following the acquisition. The same should apply to Poste account holders and the millions of Italians who use its services every day.
The future of Tim employees under the Post Office
For Tim’s employees there should be no upheavals. The company employs 25,600 people in total, almost 17 thousand of them in Italy. Acquisitions often also involve layoffs, because in the merger the two companies end up “duplicating” many roles. However, Poste explained:
Taking into account the complementarity (and non-overlap) of the businesses of Poste and Tim, at the date of the offer document, it is reasonable to believe that in the event of completion of the offer there will be no impact on the human capital and existing operational sites of Poste Italiane and Tim.
