Following Telefonica’s plan to increase its stake in Telco, the largest shareholder in Telecom Italia, attention has turned to potential reactions of the Italian government to the move.
According to reports the cabinet will finally change the golden…
Following Telefonica’s plan to increase its stake in Telco, the largest shareholder in Telecom Italia, attention has turned to potential reactions of the Italian government to the move.
According to reports the cabinet will finally change the golden shares legislation to comply with EU laws, which prohibit those in most cases. However, a clause in the new legislation might define exemptions for telecoms infrastructure.
It has also been suggested that Italy considers changes to its takeover law. The government is floating the idea that companies should be allowed to set their own thresholds that would trigger mandatory takeover offers, according to reports.
Under current legislation a mandatory offer has to be made if a shareholder’s investment crosses the 30% mark. A government official was quoted saying that companies should be able to write thresholds lower than 30% into their bylaws, if they wanted to.
Telco, the holding dominated by Telefonica, owns 22.4% of Telecom Italia.
Several publications quoted a draft decree to be discussed by the Italian cabinet that would allow the government to intervene if telecoms infrastructure, such as TI’s network, was sold to a foreign acquirer.
Analysts at Bernstein downplayed the risk of such legislation, arguing that there was no Italian acquirer who could afford buying TI’s fixed line network, estimated to be worth between €10bn and €15bn.
