Poste Raises Stake in Telecom Italia to Become Biggest Holder

(Bloomberg) — Italy’s state-run postal service raised its stake in Telecom Italia SpA to nearly 25%, overtaking Vivendi SE because the cellphone provider’s greatest investor and ending the French media conglomerate’s decade-long tenure on the Italian firm. 

Poste Italiane, which has owned about 10% of Telecom Italia, bought an extra holding of 15% from Vivendi for €684 million ($684 million), or €0.2975 per share, in accordance to an announcement on Saturday. The deal permits Poste to keep beneath a threshold that may set off a compulsory takeover provide below Italian rules. The deal completion is anticipated in the primary half of this yr, the assertion added.

“The transaction represents a strategic funding for Poste Italiane, carried out with the goal of taking part in the position of long-term industrial shareholder, producing synergies between Poste Italiane and Telecom Italia,” Poste stated. 

The transfer offers Poste, which has expanded into monetary and logistics companies, a task 

as a bulwark towards additional overseas management of Italy’s cellphone business. Telecom Italia has lately emerged as a doable goal because it slashed debt following the up to €22 billion sale of its landline community to KKR & Co. final yr.

The announcement confirms an earlier Bloomberg Information report.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni final month backed a stake swap that allowed Poste to take over a 9.8% holding in Telecom Italia from state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti SpA. CDP, in flip, acquired Poste’s 3.8% stake in funds specialist Nexi SpA.

Since coming to energy in 2022, Meloni’s right-wing authorities has saved a detailed eye on firms it considers “nationwide champions.” That’s translated into efforts to chase away overseas purchases of Italian belongings, whether or not by rounding up native traders or resorting to the “golden energy” provision, which permits the state to block takeovers of strategic belongings in some instances.

The administration sees Poste as a pure match for Telecom Italia, given the postal operator already runs the nation’s largest cellular digital community operator.

As well as to its conventional companies of operating Italy’s mail service and providing financial savings accounts, Poste has diversified into power, insurance coverage and telecommunications. It has about 120,000 workers and a few 13,000 areas throughout the nation. Final yr, Poste reported gross sales of €12.6 billion and internet revenue exceeding €2 billion.

Whereas Vivendi had been Telecom Italia’s largest shareholder for a decade, its holdings in the corporate have been shrinking for years. Vivendi agreed to an preliminary stake in Telecom Italia as a part of a 2014 deal to promote its Brazilian broadband enterprise GVT to Spain’s Telefonica SA, then an investor in Telecom Italia. 

(Updates to embrace context about Giorgia Meloni’s administration all through.)

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