Hutchison Whampoa and VimpelCom have reached an agreement on senior management positions as they look to close the merger of their respective Italian mobile phone units, 3 Italia and Wind Telecomunicazioni, over the next three months, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg. The companies have been holding on-off talks since December 2013, with Wind's net debt level and the exact split of ownership representing the main hurdles to a deal. However, the sources suggest that the companies have now agreed that Maximo Ibarra, current CEO of Wind Telecomunicazioni, will head the merged entity, with 3 Italia CEO Vincenzo Novari set to become a board member and take a supervisory role at Hutchison Whampoa’s Italian businesses.
Having reached consensus over the management jobs, negotiations will now focus on the structure of the entity, which would have around 33 million customers and annual revenues of some EUR 6.5 billion, according to the sources. However, the shareholding structure of the merged group remains a stumbling block and no final decisions have been taken on the management and financial details of the transaction.
