It is back to talk about the union jumped several times last moment between the major shareholders of Wind and 3 Italy, respectively the third and fourth mobile operator on the Italian market.
To act as mediators between the two “suitors” are Goldman Sachs and Deutch Bank, negotiations should lead to a merger and create a new super-operator alone would be able to collect 30% of the Italian mobile market.
Negotiation is often blurred by the lack of agreement between the two companies to governance issues and the debt accumulated by strong wind, passed in 2010 by the hands of Naguib Sawiris to those of the Russian Vimpelcom. Now the two problems, thanks to the work of the merchant banks, approach to their resolution and it seems that the conclusion of the Agreement remain only a few details. In addition, the arrival of Jean-Claude Juncker at the top of the EU Commission was considered by experts as a step towards the strengthening of telecommunications companies in the battle against the over-the-top (Google Yahoo!). If you celebrate the union, to govern the new entity will be the tycoon Li Ka Shing, who with his 3 Italy H3G launched at the beginning of the millennium when he participated in the famous race for the UMTS frequencies. The merger between Wind and 3 Italy would lead to a consolidation of the market of mobile phone, therefore the other two major Italian operators, Vodafone and TIM, may finally have a “truce” in the fight of prices in the last five years has affected heavily their accounts. In addition, from time Vodafone would be interested in the acquisition of Infostrada to expand in the area of fixed telephony, while Telecom Italy (TIM) could buy the transmission towers of Wind measured between 300 and 500 million Euros.
The rumor about the likely merger between Wind and 3 Italy has had an immediate positive effect on trading on the Milan Stock, Telecom Italy has come to move to the summit of the FTSE MIB +5.03% with a 0.888 and a simplification of the competitive could improve the sales of a few percentage points for the mobile business (at least 2%).
Source: Corriere delle Comunicazioni