French media group Vivendi will reportedly increase its stake in Telecom Italia to 14.9% in the coming days, Reuters reported.
Citing a source close to the situation, the report suggested that Vivendi is expected to announce the deal tomorrow or the…
French media group Vivendi will reportedly increase its stake in Telecom Italia to 14.9% in the coming days, Reuters reported.
Citing a source close to the situation, the report suggested that Vivendi is expected to announce the deal tomorrow or the day after, and that it would also get two board seats.
Vivendi declined to comment. Meanwhile, TI chairman, Giuseppe Recchi, was quoted saying that Vivendi chairman Vincent Bollore would not take part in the telco’s next board meeting on 26 June.
Last week, rumours resurfaced that Vivendi aims to raise its interest in the Italian telco to between 10% and 15%, after the break-up of Telco, TI’s holdco, was officially executed.
Further to the demerger, Telefonica, one of Telco’s shareholders, will transfer 8.3% of its TI voting rights to Vivendi as part-payment for its acquisition of Brazilian broadband player GVT.
The other Telco investors −Generali, Mediobanca and Intesa Sanpaolo− are also expected to sell their shares. Having exited nearly all its telecoms investments to focus on content production, Vivendi, whose CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine recently described the TI stake as “opportunistic”, would benefit from a tie-up with the Rome-based telco to ensure wider distribution of content produced by subsidiaries Universal Music Group and French pay-television operator Canal Plus.
