Telecom Italia, which yesterday rebranded as TIM, has issued an eight-year €750m fixed-rate bond. Its top executives, meanwhile, dismissed ongoing speculation around takeover interest by Orange and Brazilian M&A talks with Oi.
Telecom Italia (BIT:TIT), which yesterday rebranded as TIM, has issued an eight-year €750m (US$818m) fixed-rate bond.
Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, RBS and Unicredit acted as joint bookrunners, with Morgan Stanley, Banca IMI, Mediobanca, Commerzbank and Sumitomo as bookrunners.
The company said the note’s 3.625% coupon was the second lowest out of the outstanding bonds within its €20bn medium term notes (EMTN) programme.
The final yield has been set at 305 bps over mid-swaps, or a coupon of 3.679%.
Telecom Italia noted that this was lower than its average 5.3% cost of debt, as of 30 September 2015.
Proceeds from the new issue, which was reportedly more than two-and-a-half times oversubscribed, will be used to refinance maturing debt.
Addresses ongoing M&A talk
At a press conference following the rebrand, the operator’s top executives sought to address the near permanent speculation around future ownership.
Chairman Giuseppe Recchi said there had been no contact with France’s Orange, whose CEO Stéphane Richard has repeatedly and specifically stated interest in Telecom Italia as part of eventual plans to consolidate Europe’s medium sized telecom operators.
CEO Marco Patuano, for his part, dismissed continued reports of Brazilian M&A talks with Oi as “only speculation”.
