The one-goal match is in the hands of the council
Indeed not. Considering that then “the government will evaluate when it will fall under its responsibility” as explained by the Made in Italy minister, Adolfo Urso, on the sidelines of a conference on “The Soft Power of Italy”. The executive’s message the day before Tim’s board meeting is not particularly comforting. Above all because one of the players involved is Cdp, financial arm of the state, as well as a shareholder of both Tim that of the rival Open Fiber. Nonetheless, the market is hoping for a solution. Witness the fact that in Piazza Affari the share of the former public telecommunications monopolist gains just over 2% settling at 0.31 euro.
However, expectations remain high for a meeting in which the councilors will have to evaluate the two offers on the table: that of Kkr and that of the Cdp-Macquarie tandem. The two proposals are close (about 20 billion). However, the first revolves around the evaluation of Fibercop, the network company controlled by Tim and owned by Kkr; the second around that of Open Fiber, a company controlled by CDP and from the Macquarie fund. All in a conflict of interest of the parties involved which is supervised by Tim’s internal committee for transactions with related parties.
The council could ask for an upward adjustment of the CDP-Macquarie offer. But it is not excluded that the board takes time since the offers will expire at the end of the month. Time that could also be used by Kkr, Cdp and Macquarie to imagine a three-way proposal along the lines of what happened in the case of Autostrade per l’Italia at the time of thedeparture of the Benettons.
The redde rationem with the French partner Vivendi is set for 20 April
Whatever the council’s decision, the choice will then have to pass the scrutiny of the government which holds special powers over strategic assets (the so-called Golden power) and will have to get the green light from Vivendi, Tim’s largest shareholder, currently not on the board. On the occasion of the presentation of the 2022 results, the French shareholder clarified that he intends to be “a very active shareholder”.
In other words, the company owned by the Bolloré family intends to do everything to “to bring out the real value of the company”. And of his network which, according to the French, is worth 31 billion, a figure well above the two offers on the table of the former public monopolist. Vivendi holds almost 24% of Tim, but there are those on the market who are ready to bet that other funds could espouse the thesis of the French at the meeting putting Tim’s CEO in difficulty, Peter Labriolaand by breaking the bank for both proposals in the meeting scheduled for April 20th.
The tension is high. It could not be otherwise since the Italian campaign cost dear to the Bolloré group. The French giant closed the 2022 financial year with revenues up 20% to 20.67 billion euros. Profit stood at 3.4 billion, against over 6 in 2021. But the decline was affected by the deconsolidation of Tim for 1.49 billion, partly offset by the 3.5 billion capital gain recorded on the sale of Bolloré Africa Logistic to the MSC of the Aponte family
The grain of the National Strategic Pole
The Lazio Regional Administrative Court accepted most of the complaints of Fastweb-Aruba in the appeal against the presidency of the council for the victory of the offer of Tim-Cdp-Leonardo-Sogei for the national cloud. And that is an infrastructure that represents a reference for Mission 1 of the Pnrr and foresees over 900 million of investmentFor the administrative magistrates, the proposal of the consortium led by the former public monopolist is inadmissible for two technical aspects.
First of all, the offer does not respect the minimum distance between the data centers of the Southern Regions (Acilia and Pomezia) and those of the North (Rozzano and Santo Stefano al Ticino). Secondly, the project does not meet the seismic safety parameters required by the administration. In particular the data center of Pomezia it is in a zone with higher smisicity with respect to the provisions of the competition rules.
Although the offer from Tim’s consortium was inadmissible, the TAR was unable to invalidate the award contract due to the new rules envisaged for Pnrr procurement. However the judge acknowledged partial damage to the Fastweb-Aruba tandem equal to 35% of lost profits which a third-party assessor will have to certify. According to some estimates, the compensation for the excluded consortium could reach up to 500 million. Naturally, the game is not over yet since the government’s appeal to the Council of State is awaited.
But it says a lot about how the game of the national strategic pole against which the regional cloud subsidiaries also moved. And which represents for Tim an important growth driver in a particularly aggressive telecommunications market with progressively declining margins for operators. Another knot that Tim will have to deal with in case the government supports the federated model of the cloudas announced by the undersecretary for technological innovation, Alessio Butti.