La Gara per NetCo
Raise your hand if you understand which road the Tim dossier is taking and the tender for the sale of his NetCo, which in addition to the main network (including Fibercop) also keeps Sparkle inside. More than three weeks to go at the end of June 9 for new offers and every day which passes, registers new indiscretions. A lot of confusion under the sky, confusion that is not good for the stock which in fact lost 1.61% yesterday to 0.2683 and today it goes down to 2.5% after an even heavier start to the session.
Pulling the strings between verified news and rumors, a single certainty emerges which, moreover, had been certified in a non-transparent way by the press release with which Tim had closed the board of directors meeting on May 4: “The board of directors – we read – considered the submitted offers have not yet been adapted… Therefore, considering the willingness expressed by at least one of the bidders to improve it, the board decided to probe this availability, in order to obtain a final offer by 9 June next”.
Kkr’s offer
It was evidently the Kkr fund which had presented an improved offer compared to the previous one of about one billion, going from 20 to 21, against the 19.3 put on the plate by the consortium Cdp Macquarie. Second Bloomberg the Italian-Australian consortium (which also controls Open Fiber) allegedly took a step back and therefore withdrew from the tender for NetCo. The interested parties have not confirmed, in the sense that Tim has not received any official communications, it would be the precondition for the negotiations for the joint offer to start, which was talked about so much last week.
Kkr which joins forces with Cdp-Macquarie and F2i to present a new offer, take over the network and leave ServiceCo to Vivendi, Tim’s first shareholder, who has never fallen below the 31 billion valuation for the network. Hypothesis at stake and on which we continue to work, also by virtue of the consent of the Mef, but it should be said that it is difficult to achieve. In fact, there is a sort of crossed veto to be overcome. On the one hand, the US fund Kkr wants to act as a pivot for the maxi-consortium and above all wants to have guarantees that there are no risks associated with the Antitrust, risks that participation in the new Cdp-Macquarie consortium would evidently bring with it.
Macquarie resistances
On the other hand – as it highlights Reuters – Macquarie is raising legal questions about a possible alliance between CDP and KKR. According to sources consulted by the agency, some clauses included in the agreement between the shareholders of Open Fiber (60% owned by CDP and 40% by Macquarie) could give the Australian fund a certain leeway to hinder the possible decision of the CDP to abandon the alliance with Macquarie and adhere to the Kkr proposal. On the contrary. According to one of the sources, Macquarie would even aim to improve the offer with CDP before the June 9 deadline.
In short, everything and the opposite of everything, while the first shareholder, Vivendi, is anxiously awaiting the deadline for presenting offers set for 9 June. The French have never made a secret of favoring other solutions (primarily the private takeover with Tim’s takeover bid and delisting) and considering a sort of wasted time the race for the goal which is instead the solution on which Tim’s CEO Pietro Labriola is pushing. From here also arose the disagreements, now difficult to resolve, between the top management and the transalpine media giant. Investors, however, don’t understand where Tim is going and in a very complicated market like that of telecommunications (see Vodafone’s decision to cut 11,000 people), lack of clarity is the worst enemy.