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The government takes Tim’s destiny into its own hands and with a formal act has authorized the Ministry of Economy to enter Netco and guarantees that there will be the financial resources to purchase up to 20% of the future network company: with two decrees launched on Monday August 28th, on the table he aims to spend up to 2.2 billion for a stake that he considers strategic. «After having found a serious solution for ITA with an agreement with Lufthansa, EU Commission permitting, and which sometimes raises problems that we hardly understand, now the time has come to give perspective to what has been one of the international champions of telecommunications» , Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in the Council of Ministers.
Strategic control and safeguarding of jobs
“The direction taken by the government is what the centre-right has always hoped for and supported: to assume strategic control of the telecommunications network and safeguard jobs”, adds the prime minister. A declaration which is like a seal on the memorandum signed on 10 August between the Mef and KKR, the American fund already a shareholder of Tim which is negotiating exclusively for the purchase of the network company.
Cdp’s participation to be defined
The MEF’s participation in Tim’s Netco “will be a minority interest for a maximum amount of 2 billion and 200 million”, specified the minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, reiterating that it is a participation “aimed at ensuring the exercise of special powers, essentially the ability to impact in terms of security strategy on what we consider an infrastructure, the TLC network, as decisive for the future of the country”.
“We hope that with this action we can somehow give a stable and definitive framework to a matter that has been at an impasse for a long time and could have a definitive solution in the coming months.” There is still a month to present the binding offer which must arrive by 30 September but by the end of the month the fund should, according to expectations, be able to find an agreement with the banks to finance the operation. Among the points still to be defined is the participation of CDP, which has said it is open to forms of cooperation.