Telecom Italia has announced the sale of its Brazilian mobile phone towers for BRL 3 billion (around EUR 900 million) and confirmed that its management has been empowered to seek a possible tie up between its Brazilian unit TIM Brasil and rival operator Oi. In a statement issued after a board meeting held on 21 November, Telecom Italia said it approved the sale of up to 6,481 telecommunication towers in Brazil to American Tower Corp for approximately EUR 900 million, its target figure. The sale of the Brazilian tower assets was one of the measures announced by Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano at the end of 2013 as part of a wide-ranging plan to bring down the company's debt.
At the same time, Telecom Italia announced it had mandated its management to "examine in-depth the options for a possible integration" of Tim Brasil and Oi. Without going into any details, the company simply confirmed that "the next steps, if there are to be any, will be submitted to the board for approval."
In addition, Telecom Italia said that a proposal had been sent to Italian infrastructure fund F2i asking to start discussions about the acquisition of a controlling stake in Italian broadband provider Metroweb "as soon as possible". F2i currently owns a 54 percent stake in Metroweb’s holding company Metroweb Italia. In its statement, Telecom Italia said it had identified Metroweb as the partner with which it could quickly create a plan to increase investment in fibre optic networks throughout Italy. "Collaboration between the two companies would represent an important element to speed up the technological development of the ultrabroadband network, through the creation of FTTH and FTTB infrastructure in the principal Italian cities," it said.
