Telecom Italia boom today in the Milan stock market. Its stock rose 8.7% to close the day at a price of €1,261, reaching also an 11% increase during the day. This incredible growth follows the news of the entrance in the society of the French billionaire Xavier Niel, founder of Internet operator Iliad. According to Forbes Neil, who was born in 1967, has a personal fortune of $ 8.3 billion, making him the ninth richest man in France and the 136th in the 2015 ranking of global McDuck. Niel, Bloomberg remembers, comes from numerous investments in successful startup, as Deezer, and has also made investments in telecommunications via staff outside France: he bought Orange Switzerland for 2.9 billion last year. Moreover he tried also to acquire T-Mobile US from Deutsche Telekom but this attempt went wrong.
Unnamed sources close to the operation said that the French entrepreneur will hold a 11.2% stake in Telecom with voting rights: 6.1% resulting from call option contracts that have different settlement dates and derivatives with long positions amounting to 5.109%. The evaluation of a 11.2% share of the Italian telephony operator is about 1.7 billion euro at yesterday’s closing value.
This cannot be considered the first French investor in Telecom Italia since Vivendi, owned by Vincent Bolloré, has approximately 20% of the the market shares. Vivendi wants to revitalize the Italian company under a plan that provides for the creation of a media group focused on Southern Europe. The backbone should be Canal-Plus, in partnership with telecoms operators for the distribution of content and TV film. It is still unclear if Niel and Bolloré are allies or adversaries: a French consortium, if it were clearly established, would reach 31%, and then would require a tender offer of Telecom Italia. Both parts are denying such a possibility and also the firm does not believe the hypothesis of a French agreement.
There is another news which interests Telecom Italia in these days. In fact there are some developments also coming from South America, where the investment company of Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman, based in Luxembourg, has sent a direct investment in Oi of 4 billion dollars aimed at the merger with TIM Brasil, which is controlled by Telecom Italia. According to the Globo newspaper the board of directors of Oi said yes but asked the company of Russian Friedman to ensure a capital injection of $ 4 billion and to reduce the time to find an agreement with Tim from 9 months to just 60 days. For the Brazilian press, Oi and the advisor Battalion Pactual will now begin to work with Telecom Italia for the proposal of a merger between Tim and Oi.
Vincenzo Carandente
Unnamed sources close to the operation said that the French entrepreneur will hold a 11.2% stake in Telecom with voting rights: 6.1% resulting from call option contracts that have different settlement dates and derivatives with long positions amounting to 5.109%. The evaluation of a 11.2% share of the Italian telephony operator is about 1.7 billion euro at yesterday’s closing value.
This cannot be considered the first French investor in Telecom Italia since Vivendi, owned by Vincent Bolloré, has approximately 20% of the the market shares. Vivendi wants to revitalize the Italian company under a plan that provides for the creation of a media group focused on Southern Europe. The backbone should be Canal-Plus, in partnership with telecoms operators for the distribution of content and TV film. It is still unclear if Niel and Bolloré are allies or adversaries: a French consortium, if it were clearly established, would reach 31%, and then would require a tender offer of Telecom Italia. Both parts are denying such a possibility and also the firm does not believe the hypothesis of a French agreement.
There is another news which interests Telecom Italia in these days. In fact there are some developments also coming from South America, where the investment company of Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman, based in Luxembourg, has sent a direct investment in Oi of 4 billion dollars aimed at the merger with TIM Brasil, which is controlled by Telecom Italia. According to the Globo newspaper the board of directors of Oi said yes but asked the company of Russian Friedman to ensure a capital injection of $ 4 billion and to reduce the time to find an agreement with Tim from 9 months to just 60 days. For the Brazilian press, Oi and the advisor Battalion Pactual will now begin to work with Telecom Italia for the proposal of a merger between Tim and Oi.
Vincenzo Carandente