MILAN: Telecom Italia<\/a>'s network spinoff is overdue but imperfect. Selling a chunk of its telecom grid to U.S. buyout firm KKR for 1.8 billion euros should help the Italian operator<\/a> speed up investment in faster broadband connections<\/a>. However, a plan to subsequently merge Telecom Italia's wires with state-backed rival operator Open Fiber<\/a> smacks of damaging government meddling.
The 8 billion euro Telecom Italia is taking advantage of infrastructure funds' growing appetite for fixed telecom networks. KKR's offer for a 37.5% stake in the newly created company which owns the lines connecting Italian homes to nearby cabinets gives it an enterprise value of 7.7 billion euros, including 3 billion euros of debt. That's equivalent to a cheap-looking 8.6 times FiberCop's estimated 2021 EBITDA of 900 million euros. Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners paid a multiple of 20 times when acquiring a chunk of the Portuguese broadband<\/a> network from Patrick Drahi's Altice Europe.
KKR is betting that FiberCop's mostly copper connections will have been upgraded to faster and more valuable optical fibre cables by the time it sells out in seven or eight years. The prospect of an outside investor providing a cash injection is a possible template for other debt-laden European operators, like Britain's BT.
The Italian model is far from ideal, however. The FiberCop deal is a first step towards a government-sponsored merger of Telecom Italia's network with smaller rival Open Fiber. State investor Cassa Depositi e Prestiti has stakes in both companies. The government believes the two are unnecessarily duplicating investments, thus slowing the deployment of ultra-fast connections in Italy.
There's little question that Telecom Italia, which is seeking to retain a stake of at least 50.1% in the merged entity, would benefit from reduced domestic competition. Less clear is whether the new network monopoly, whose exact scope and valuation are still unclear, would have the same stringent incentives to quickly roll out fibre connections. And the complex integration would keep Chief Executive Luigi Gubitosi busy for at least two years.
Telecom Italia's contortions highlight a serious issue: the transition to faster fibre requires large investments that indebted operators can ill-afford alone. The danger, however, is that too much government meddling stalls the much-needed broadband upgrade.
<\/body>","next_sibling":[{"msid":77872838,"title":"Mobile workers to make 60% of total US workforce by 2024: IDC","entity_type":"ARTICLE","link":"\/news\/mobile-workers-to-make-60-of-total-us-workforce-by-2024-idc\/77872838","category_name":null,"category_name_seo":"telecomnews"}],"related_content":[],"msid":77873028,"entity_type":"ARTICLE","title":"Telecom Italia network spinoff is imperfect","synopsis":"Telecom Italia's network spinoff is overdue but imperfect. Selling a chunk of its telecom grid to U.S. buyout firm KKR for 1.8 billion euros should help the Italian operator speed up investment in faster broadband connections. ","titleseo":"telecomnews\/telecom-italia-network-spinoff-is-imperfect","status":"ACTIVE","authors":[],"analytics":{"comments":0,"views":198,"shares":0,"engagementtimems":909000},"Alttitle":{"minfo":""},"artag":"Reuters","artdate":"2020-09-01 18:02:54","lastupd":"2020-09-01 18:08:05","breadcrumbTags":["Broadband connections","Telecom Italia","Open Fiber","Twitter","BT Group","National Broadband Network","Broadband","optical fiber","Industry","italian operator"],"secinfo":{"seolocation":"telecomnews\/telecom-italia-network-spinoff-is-imperfect"}}" data-news_link="//www.iser-br.com/news/telecom-italia-network-spinoff-is-imperfect/77873028">