The CEO of Italian infrastructure fund F2i has confirmed contacts with Spain's Cellnex Telecom over Telecom Italia’s plan to sell a stake in its mobile-phone tower unit Inwit. In an interview with Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, F2i CEO Renato Ravanelli confirmed that the state-backed fund was considering a joint bid with Cellnex after holding "strong and positive" talks. Last week Cellnex CEO Tobias Martinez Gimeno admitted that a stake in Inwit would fit the Spanish operator’s strategy. "The Inwit network makes a lot of sense from an industrial and a business point of view for us," he said.
Recent Italian press reports have suggested that tower operator EI Towers, controlled by commercial broadcaster Mediaset, is also preparing a bid of around EUR 860 million to acquire a stake in Inwit, whose share value has risen sharply since Telecom Italia raised around EUR 780 million in June from an IPO of a 40 percent holding in the company. However, state-controlled RaiWay has ruled out a potential bid.
