Tim announced that it has reached an agreement for the sale of its shares in the company it controls Inwit, one of the largest Italian companies listed on the stock exchange. The shares held by Tim will enter the portfolio of the French investment fund Ardian, which will buy them for approximately 250 million euros.
The main Italian telephone operator is therefore once again cashing in with a sale after the much more significant one of its Italian network to the American fund KKR.Inwit deals with the construction and maintenance, as well as the operation, of the transmission towers that enable wireless communications in our country.
Tim sells Inwit to Ardian for 250 million euros
The main telephone operator and former Italian monopolist Tim has sold its stakes in the holding company Daphne3, which controls the shares of the wireless technology company Inwit. Tim will sell the shares to the investment fund Ardian French for a total of 250 million dollars. The valuation of the company’s shares has in fact been set at 10.43 euros. The proceeds will be added to the 2024 guidance, with a closing prospect that should occur in the fourth quarter of this year.
The unions also commented on the operation. In fact, several Inwit workers have been subjected to social warning measures for some time: “We hope that all these movements that continue to rotate will provide a real prospect of recovery for the workers too. A good sign would be the overcoming of the social safety nets that have been present in this group for too long”, he declared to the site CorCom the secretary general of the Uilcom Except Ugliarolo.
However, the title does not react Tim on the stock exchange, which lost about 1.2% on the morning of August 13, when the sale was announced. The reduction in the size of the company after the sale of the Italian network also led to an adjustment of its market capitalization, which fell by 27% since the beginning of the year. Inwit, on the other hand, remained stable after the news, losing just under a third of a point.
What Inwit does and who controls it now
Inwit is one of the 20 largest companies listed on the stock exchange in Italy. Its main activity concerns wireless communication transmission towers, which allow telephone calls and the use of the Internet throughout the national territory. Invite owns and operates approximately 23 thousand towers that serve different operators. Each structure hosts on average the repeaters of 2.2 mobile phone companies that operate in our country.
Like many Italian telephone companies, Inwit was also born as a spin-off of a section of the former monopolist Telecom Italia, in 2015. Five years later it merged with Vodafone Towers Italia, taking on a crucial role in the wireless infrastructure in our country. The company’s consolidated balance sheet closed in 2023 with revenues of 960 billion euros, with a growth of 12% compared to the previous year.
Vodafone retains part of the control of the company through the holding company Central Tower Holding Company, while Daphne3, which previously represented Tim’s participation, is entirely controlled by the French fund Ardian. The rest of the capital is divided among various operators on the financial market including many other investment funds.
