After acquiring the control of Tim From the French Vivendi, Poste Italiane could restart an old negotiation. It seemed to have interrupted just at the time of the entry of the public shipping company in the former telephony monopolist. TIM could aim for the Fusion with Iliadto reduce the number of telephone operators in Italy.
A indication of this intention would be in the notes that accompanied the announcement of the financial operation, in which we speak of the “stabilization of the Italian telephone market”.
Because Tim and Iliad want to merge
Tim was already thinking, before the entrance of the post office in the capital of the company, to merge with Iliad. The French competitor had a disruptive effect in the Italian market, offering very low prices to cut out a share and leaving one price war which led Italy to have the lowest costs in Europe for mobile and fixed telephony.
After years of the decline, however, the companies would like to start taking profit from investments in Italy. Hence the need to drop the competition and create an environment in which prices can align with the rest of Europe. A perspective not ideal for consumers, who for years have been able to take advantage of one of the free more competitive telephony markets on the continent and which could now have to face an increase in prices.
Originally the operation between TIM and Iliad should also involve the British fund CVCbut with the entry on the scene this may no longer be necessary.
The other Plan Plans with TIM
The acquisition of Tim, however, was called “strategic” by the press releases that accompanied her for reasons other than the possible operation with Iliad. In fact, he points to numerous synergies with the former telephony monopolist
- It could move its Poste Mobile offer on the TIM infrastructure, which today operates with Vodafone;
- Tim is the main cloud service provider in Italy and Poste is the major user of these services.
It would therefore be an important optimization of some services for post office, which would reduce costs by internalizing some expenses within the new group.
The details of the Poste and Tim operation
Poste spent in total 850 million euros for TIM. A figure in line with the market value of the company, an unusual circumstance given that, in the case of operations of this type, those who sell asks for a “prize”, a increase on the value of their actions. However, Vivendi was in a hurry to leave Tim, after years of quarrels with the other shareholders.
The operation brought Placed just below 25%the minimum to check the top of the company and, at the same time, do not have to launch a public purchase offer. To the former main shareholder, the French Vivendionly remains the 2.5% of the companya percentage that could soon end up on the market.
