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By Elvira Pollina and Stephen Jewkes
MILAN, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Telecom Italia and
Vodafone will kick off the sale of a stake in their
Italian tower business in the coming days after picking advisers
for the process, two sources said.
Vodafone has selected UBS, while Telecom Italia (TIM) has
chosen Banca IMI, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill
Lynch, one of the sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
TIM, Vodafone and the banks all declined to comment.
TIM and Vodafone agreed in July to fold their Italian mobile
tower assets into TIM's 60%-owned unit INWIT to cut
debt and free up cash for the roll-out of next generation 5G
telecommunications networks.
The 10 billion euro ($11 billion) merger deal is awaiting
European Union antitrust approval and is expected to wrap up in
the first few months of 2020.
INWIT, Italy's biggest telecom mast operator, has called a
shareholder meeting on Dec. 19 to sign off on the deal.
After the merger TIM and Vodafone will have 37.5% each of
the new bigger INWIT but the two phone groups have already
agreed to cut their stakes to 25%, while keeping joint control.
The two phone companies are expected to kick of the process
to sell the stake in the coming days, one of the sources said.
Several European telecom companies are considering selling
part of their mobile networks on the back of high valuations for
infrastructure assets and a growing appetite from funds seeking
steady returns at a time of negative rates.
Earlier this month, France’s former telecoms monopoly Orange
said it plans to carve out its mobile towers in most
European countries where it is present.
($1 = 0.9073 euros)
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina and Stephen Jewkes;
Editing by Alexander Smith)
