Network Tim, uphill road to Kkr. CDP probes funds and insurance companies

MILAN. A little over a week after its presentation, Kkr’s offer on Tim’s network is already on an uphill slope and the stock slips on the Stock Exchange. The proposal values ​​the network on average at 20 billion and would allow Tim, losing the majority of the infrastructure, to deconsolidate the debt absorbed by the future NetCo and immediately collect new liquidity. The problem is that, according to financial sources involved in the matter, the offer – which includes FiberCop, the last mile valued at 10 billion and of which Kkr is already the second shareholder with 37.5% -, net of earn outs and of other variables of which it is made up, it could even be worth less than 15 billion. A figure that would take the sum away, and by no small amount, from the objective set by Tim’s first shareholders, ie the French of Vivendi (23.75%). According to which the starting figure is 31 billion, although today this can be purified of at least 2 billion of synergies for the single network that is no longer topical. In any case, the distance remains abysmal. And it would also involve the number of employees destined to join NetCo, which would be only the 21,000 envisaged by the Tim plan, to then drop to 17,000 in 2025. Which would load the other 20,000 in the services section: many to compete, for example , with 6 thousand of Vodafone Italy.

With the French who could hardly support the offer of Kkr, among Tim’s advisors, who will have to decide on the proposal on February 24, caution would be utmost. After the resignation of Arnaud de Puyfontaine from the board, Vivendi no longer has direct representatives, the director Giovanni Gorno Tempini, president of Cdp, cannot vote because he is in a conflict of interest (Cassa has 60% of Open Fiber), ditto Massimo Sarmi, president of FiberCop. The independents remain, mostly expression of the funds, however exposed to the risk of liability actions. A council between two fires could at least take time. Not even the counter-offer from Cdp appears imminent and could await the outcome on Kkr. However, the Cassa would already be working together with the Macquarie fund.

There would be contacts to syndicate, or subdivide at a later time, shares of the network: we are talking about the Brookfield fund, but also Cig, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, and some European insurance companies. In the meantime, all traces of the Mimit table have been lost. Meloni promises clarity soon. For now he beats Minister Adolfo Urso once again and returns to declaiming the desire to have “a publicly controlled network”