The Italian insurance company Assicurazioni Generali, one of the partners in the Telco SpA investment vehicle that runs Telecom Italia via a 22.4 percent stake, plans to exit its holding as early as June, according to CEO Mario Greco. “We have two exit windows, one in June 2014 and one in February 2015,” said Greco, adding that “it’s likely that we will exit in June’s window.” Generali owns a 19.3 percent stake in Telco SpA, which would suggest that its holding in the operator stands at 4.3 percent, worth around EUR 500 million based on today’s trading according to Bloomberg.
Telefonica, the largest shareholder in Telco, has an option to gradually take over the stakes of Generali and its other two partners, Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca. However, regulatory hurdles in Brazil, where Telefonica and Telecom Italia together control over half of the local mobile market, are likely to prevent the Spanish operator from exercising its option to acquire Generali’s stake at EUR 1.10 per share.
In the last quarter Generali wrote down the value of its Telecom Italia holding to EUR 0.72 per share. An exit by any of the Telco partners would break up a 2007 shareholder pact that allowed Telefonica and the three Italian investors to take control of Telecom Italia’s board.
