MILAN. Green light from the board of Cassa depositi e prestiti to the non-binding offer for the Telecom infrastructure. The proposal, technically carried out by Cassa’s subsidiary, Cdp Equity, and jointly with the Australian Macquarie Asset Management, is aimed at the purchase “of Tim’s NetCo to be established – reads a note -, which will include the infrastructure network and the stake in Sparkle . The offer will be valid until 31 March 2023”.
Thus, a second offer arrives on the table of Tim’s board after the one of about 18 billion presented by the Kkr fund but which the board of the former monopolist judged insufficient and needs improvement. The proposal by Cdp and Macquarie, according to rumors, would be more generous right from the start. The infrastructure – which would not include Sparkle’s international cables – could be valued at around 20 billion.
The Open Fiber theme
In particular, the effort would be to direct more cash to Tim against a lower debt acceptance (about 7.7 billion). In particular, then, the evaluation of the secondary network of FiberCop would decrease, which Kkr, already a shareholder of 37.5%, evaluates at around 12 billion, to the advantage instead of the primary network, thus favoring the reduction of the debt burden of Tim which, at the gross, exceeds 30 billion euros.
According to the filters, it will be a maneuver in two stages. The entry immediately, then the transfer of Open Fiber at a later time, once the overlaps in the commercially strongest areas that constitute the greatest critical issues for the European Antitrust have been resolved – through sales. Weak point: Open Fiber’s assessment which, if it follows Macquarie’s “stellar” one at the time, will be much debated. The idea, however, is to create synergies with an industrial project that moves towards that “national” and “publicly controlled” network that the government has been talking about for some time.
The unknowns
From tomorrow morning, all eyes will be on Tim’s board of directors, called to judge the new proposal, and on the leading shareholder Vivendi (23.75%), which will be very difficult to digest Cassa’s offer. For the price, given that in the opinion of the French the network is worth at least 31 billion, all the more now that synergies with Open Fiber are back in the field. And for the Antitrust issues which, pending remedies, represent a non-secondary unknown factor. Moral: with 24% Paris can stop everything in an extraordinary meeting.
Another possible trap in Cdp&Co’s path is made up of Kkr which, if it succumbs even after the relaunch under study, in one fell swoop it would lose the second opportunity (after the almost takeover bid planned at the end of 2021 and ended in nothing) to get their hands on the net . The antidote, for the Americans, is called FiberCop (the secondary network destined to flow into NetCo), where they boast a veto right generously granted by the contracts with which they acquired 37.5% two years ago. The government has asked KKR to extend the timing of the offer on the network until 24 March. He doesn’t rule out being able to still get everyone to agree. But for now the result is that Cdp is entering a game whose outcome will be discovered by the end of this month.