From Telecoms Europe Events: https://www.telecomseuropeevents.com/
- Mark Newman, Chief Analyst, TM Forum
- Colin Bannon, CTO, BT Business
- Mohamed Talaye, CTO, Orange Business
- Anita Döhler, CEO, NGMN Alliance
Telco to TechCo 2025 | Opening PANEL: What is a telco for?
Fiber Experts and Netzkontor Nord launch 360-Degree fibre deployment system
The German fibre to the home specialists say their “inseyet” monitoring system enables a fully digital record of the entire fibre rollout
Fibre to the home rollouts suffer from complex processes, have embedded inefficiencies and can be prone to errors. Specialises in turnkey FTTH, Fibre Experts Deutschland (FED) has teamed up with fibre engineering planning and construction company Netzkontor Nord to launch “inseyet”, a 360-degree monitoring system enables complete, seamless real-time oversight of the entire fibre optic deployment process. The system enables a fully digital record of the entire fibre rollout.
The system provides network operators and construction partners with a real-time, comprehensive overview of FTTH project progress, including the number of metres of trenches laid and customer connections completed. A key feature is the precise 3D measurement of open trenches using smartphones and GPS rovers. The depth of each trench section, the placement of cables and marker balls and numerous other data points are automatically transmitted to the system, consolidated and verified. This creates a digital twin of the construction project – exactly as it was implemented in reality.
“With ‘inseyet’, we are delivering a fully integrated solution for the entire FTTH rollout process for the first time,” said Fiber Experts managing director Raimund Winkler. “Network operators and construction partners can monitor project progress live and respond to potential issues early. This enhances transparency and efficiency.”
In future, an AI-integrated version of “inseyet” will help detect potential construction site errors at an early stage. It will be able to identify issues such as insufficient trench depth, incorrectly placed marker balls, or overly tight bending radii. The AI will immediately notify construction partners, allowing corrections to be made while the trench is still open. This prevents costly rework and unnecessary delays. The system also automates the documentation of construction progress and facilitates accurate billing processes, enhancing overall project efficiency.
“The integration of artificial intelligence is a milestone for us,” said Netzkontor Nord managing director Dennis Ritter. “Detecting and correcting errors early not only saves time and money but also significantly improves the quality of fibre deployment. Both network operators and construction partners benefit from this.”
Home-grown innovation
Both companies involved in the system have used their experience to ensure the system is robust. To execute its projects, Fiber Experts relies on its own civil engineering capacities as well as a broad network of selected construction partners. The company’s expertise covers the entire FTTH project lifecycle, from planning and design to the installation of fibre connections within homes.
Since FED was founded in June 2021, the Düsseldorf-based company has focused on the expansion of broadband networks in the telecommunications market and offers customised turnkey solutions in the field of fiber optics, area analysis, network planning and implementation throughout Germany. In 2023 the company acquired competitor Eschborn-based Elecnet to expand its base. Netzkontor Nord made a similar move in September last year acquiring Bib Tech a company known for its expertise in broadband network planning and coordination.
Iliad completes hyperscale deal with InfraVia
Europe now has a new sovereign “made in Europe” competitor to the US hyperscalers
The Iliad Group and InfraVia have closed the transaction aimed at developing OpCore into a major European hyperscale data center platform, first announced on 4 December. As a result of the deal, Iliad is selling a 50% stake in OpCore, its data center subsidiary to InfraVia. The strategic partnership is aimed at developing OpCore into a major independent European hyperscale data center platform. OpCore is valued at an enterprise value of €860 million.
OpCore has a 20-year history of operating data centres to meet the needs of the Iliad Group, hyperscalers, techcos and large corporations. It has data centres in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Poland. Through this partnership, Iliad and InfraVia have provided OpCore with the financial structure it needs to capitalise on the booming European hyperscale data market, by developing new 100 MW+ data centres in France and Europe with several construction projects already underway.
“Together with our partner, InfraVia, we’re looking forward to supporting OpCore’s teams in this ambitious new chapter of the company’s development,” said Iliad CEO Thomas Reynaud (above). “Europe needs independent data centre platforms more than ever before as these infrastructures, dedicated to storing and processing vast amounts of data, are essential enablers for a thriving ‘made in Europe’ AI ecosystem.”
“We’re determined to invest massively alongside the Iliad Group to turn OpCore into a European leader in hyperscale data centres,” InfraVia chief executive officer Vincent Levita. “Achieving this goal means investing at an unprecedented scale to meet the exponential market demand and help shape a robust and sovereign European digital ecosystem.”
The proposed partnership is intended to give OpCore the “right financial structure” with dedicated financing that will cover up to 75% of the required investment in OpCore with bank debt. It would enable OpCore to scale to more than 130 MW by developing a data centre in the Paris region of about 100MW, and then to multiple hundreds of megawatts in Europe.
The plan is that OpCore and the Iliad Group remain close partners, working together rapidly to expand Scaleway, Iliad Group’s cloud subsidiary, and OpCore itself. Scaleway will retain its status as a privileged client of OpCore.
Pardieu Brocas Maffei has advised InfraVia on the negotiation and drafting of the Master Services Agreement as well as on the real estate aspects of the transaction. InfraVia was also assisted by the investment banking firm Perella Weinberg Partners with Gilles Tré-Hardy. The EU nodded through the deal on 21 February.
Legacy OSS is holding back Level 4 Autonomous Networks
Partner content: CSPs, technology providers and standards organisations launched the L4 is ON Joint Initiative at the Autonomous Networks Summit 2025 held at MWC in Barcelona
In recent years, members of the TM Forum has collaborated to create a six-step approach – Level 0 to Level 5 – to measure progress towards network automation and autonomy. The lower levels are already being applied and are delivering immediate cost, efficiency, and agility benefits.
Gaining higher levels is tough, hence communication service providers (CSPs), technology providers and standards organisations launched the L4 is ON Joint Initiative at the Autonomous Networks Summit 2025 held at MWC in Barcelona in March. However, there are many challenges still to overcome, particularly the problem of a mishmash of legacy OSS systems and infrastructure. Where does that leave automation?
The L4 is ON Joint Initiative
We are now evolving towards Level 4 (a high level of automation – see below), and operators are looking to gain additional benefits and address a broad range of scenarios.
That’s why TM Forum held a seminar entitled L4 is ON: Shaping the Future of Autonomous Networks Together during the Autonomous Networks Summit 2025 at MWC[1]. However, that might be considered a simplistic scenario as operators still face multiple challenges in achieving L4 autonomy.
Before diving into those challenges, it’s worth considering what the different levels of autonomy are, ranging from “no automation” to “full automation”, as defined by TM Forum’s members, below:
- Level 0 Manual Management –The system delivers assisted monitoring capabilities, which means all dynamic tasks must be executed manually.
- Level 1 Assisted Management – The system executes a certain repetitive subtask based on preconfigured automation to increase execution efficiency.
- Level 2 Partial Autonomous Network – The system enables closed loop O&M for certain units based on AI models under certain external environments.
- Level 3 Conditional Autonomous Network – Building on L2 capabilities, a system with awareness can sense real-time environmental changes, and in certain network domains, optimise and adjust itself to the external environment to enable intent-based, closed-loop management.
- Level 4 Highly Autonomous Network – Building on L3 capabilities, the system performs, in a more complicated cross-domain environment, and applies analysis to make decisions based on predictive or active closed-loop management of service and customer experience-driven networks.
- Level 5 Fully Autonomous Network – This level is the ultimate goal for telecom network evolution. The system possesses closed-loop automation capabilities across multiple services and domains, throughout the entire lifecycle, achieving autonomous networks.
L4 essentially represents the evolution to a new era of intelligent, self-optimising networks that will boost efficiency, reliability, and innovation for CSPs. The TM Forum seminar brought together influential voices from CSPs, technology providers, and standards organisations to launch the L4 is ON Joint Initiative. It aimed to tackle questions such as:
How do we turn the promise of Level 4 networks into reality?
How can collaboration drive the shift and deliver measurable results?
What must change — operationally and culturally — for L4’s potential to be unlocked?
Retiring legacy OSSs en masse is unrealistic
The seminar fostered dialogue between stakeholders, provided some actionable insights that could be applied to create real-world strategies for advancing Autonomous Networks. However, what is clear is that progress towards L4 is slow with significant challenges to overcome, namely dealing with legacy platforms and infrastructure. These cannot simply be retired en masse. Legacy OSSs support live services and operational processes that are still essential to customers and will be for some time to come.
Of course, operators are looking to track and measure progress towards their automation goals. Many have undertaken self-assessment, using the TM Forum’s six-step framework — the results of which were published during the Autonomous Networks Summit.
Using different categories, CSPs rated their progress to date to calculate an average score for the level of automation achieved, as shown below:
Core Network Stability — Level 3.5
RAN Fault Management — Level 2.8
IP Network Optimisation — Level 2.6
Core Network — Level 2.5
IP Network — Level 2.4
Change Management — Level 1.9
According to the participants, Level 2 has already been achieved for many processes and domains. But progress drops off — and none of the respondents reported that they had achieved Level 4.
So, a gap is opening between target and reality. In our opinion, that’s because as you seek to move to higher levels, operators face a growing challenge for the integration of new automated processes with legacy OSS infrastructure. Yes, the legacy OSS estate will be modernised or replaced over time, but for now such replacement programmes must be considered alongside other investment and transformation priorities.
Consolidating, simplifying and optimising OSS for L4
If we think about the results reported at the Summit, it seems clear that the transition to automation is moving from relatively narrow areas, such as the core network, into others that span domains. The RAN, for example, is a complex domain but one in which there is a finite number of cell sites, typically procured from a single (at most two, currently – notwithstanding progress towards OPEN RAN adoption) vendor.
In this context, it’s relatively easy to automate fault management functions in the RAN, because there are fewer vendor solutions to consider, making the task of integration somewhat easier.
Similarly, the transport (IP network) also likely comes from a narrow range of vendors, so we would probably expect more advanced progress here. What we see is most progress in tightly defined domains that are, at least in concept, relatively isolated from each other – which allows automation to proceed with fewer obstacles and friction.
In both cases, a relatively harmonised infrastructure base means that the interfaces with which automation functions and processes need to integrate are likely to be broadly consistent and follow modern principles – they may all be standardised on best practice form organisations like the TMF, for example.
Change management, on the other hand, spans all domains and is a network-wide discipline. That’s where we encounter the legacy challenge – there will be multiple systems, from many different vendors, serving different functions, services and domains. In this context, there will a heterogenous assembly of protocols and legacy interfaces, from different generations of systems and a wider range of vendors.
Moving from a narrow focus area into one that spans so many systems and entities is, naturally, much harder than, say, automating the RAN. Automating change management for a single vendor solution is necessarily easier than achieving the same thing across a multi-vendor network, OSS and BSS stack.
The results, while promising on one level, hint at the challenges ahead. The more systems and processes that are included within an automation goal (change management or security governance, for example), the more difficult automation becomes – and this is particularly applicable when the automation needs to extend to legacy solutions, such as are found in the OSS domain.
The seminar provided great insights – but is L4 really ON? Well, the answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ depending on the situation and the range of systems that need to be included in the required automation framework.
Help is, however, at hand. The We Are CORTEX platform enables integration with legacy interfaces — irrespective of the generation — that can be easily integrated to bring automation to legacy and orphaned services, and OSS elements and silos to create a consolidated future until operators are ready to retire or replace legacy systems.
To find out more about how CORTEX can help you navigate this journey, download our recent paper here
[1] https://www.tmforum.org/2025-autonomous-networks-summit/
Hrvatski Telekom appoints new leader for IT services unit
The Croatian operator’s COO for business customers and board member Marijana Bačić replaces Goran Car
Croatian information and communications technology (ICT) services company Combis will now be headed by Hrvatski Telekom (HT) COO for business customers and board member Marijana Bačić (above) from 1 May. She is replacing Goran Car who has been director at Combis for the past five years – which is an independent entity wholly owned by HT. Founded in 1990 in Dubrovnik, Combis became part of the HT Group in 2010 through HT’s acquisition of the entire share capital of Combis.
Since September 2022, Bačić has been in charge of sales, marketing, customer and technical services for business customers and ICT operations at the telco. HT signalled that the position of director of the management board of Combis will be held by a member of the management board of Hrvatski Telekom.
“HT Group, of which Combis is a part, has development plans, with a clear focus on growth, providing innovative solutions and a superior customer experience. Marijana Bačić, who has extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of the telecommunications and ICT industry, will contribute to the growth of the HT Group and the development of our customers’ businesses in her new dual role,” said Hrvatski Telekom and Combis board president Nataša Rapaić.
She added: “I would like to thank Goran Car for his leadership of Combis over the past five years, during which Combis has achieved significant growth and strengthened its position as one of the leading system integrators in the region.”
Regional play
Goran Car has been the director and board member of Combis since March 2020 and after more than 20 years of career in Combis and HT Group, he has decided to “look for new professional challenges outside the HT Group.” He successfully led Combis through various market and business challenges, and during his mandate, the company established itself as a VMware partner and has evolved from a small company to a regional leader in system integration with subsidiaries in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
The company has won some big names as well. In 2023, in collaboration with Hrvatski Telekom and Samsung Electronics Adriatic, Combis completed a digital transformation of McDonald’s restaurants across Croatia. The project involved the installation and centralised management of information and promotional content, enabling simultaneous content updates from the cloud at all locations nationwide. Combis also developed and implemented a cloud-based contact centre for Croatia Osiguranje, the largest insurance company in Croatia.
HT’s move for closer control of Combis suggests the telco hasn’t given up on regional aspirations either. It owns a majority stake in Montenegro’s incumbent operator Cronogorski Telekom and a minority stake in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s HT Mostar. In February it posted an FY24 6% YoY revenue increase, driven by robust performance in mobile, fixed services and system solutions.
In January 2025, Hrvatski Telekom completed the merger of HT Servisi into HT Inc., further streamlining operations and boosting organisational efficiency. Another significant milestone for Hrvatski Telekom was the 3G network retirement, which was concluded in Q1 2025. At its most recent results in February, the telco confirmed its stance on regional expansion remains “unchanged as we diligently assess potential M&A opportunities”.
A1 completes international DWDM network upgrade with Nokia
The telco has seen a big bandwidth boost after introducing L-band to its WDM frequencies
A1 Telekom Austria, has successfully modernised its international Wideband Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) network using Nokia’s 1830 PSS optical transport platform. The telco said the technology significantly enhances its capacity to handle vastly increased bandwidth. Thanks to the introduction of an additional WDM frequency band, the L-band, A1 has doubled the available fibre spectrum, and so can deploy twice the number of WDM channels over its existing fibre infrastructure.
The newly implemented Nokia 1830 PSS system offers “advanced spectrum flexibility and optimised performance” across the network. As a result, A1 is now capable of transporting data at speeds up to 400Gbps, 600Gbps, and 800Gbps, with plans to scale up to 1.2 Tbps in the near future. This represents a significant leap from the previous maximum of 100 Gbps.
As part of the modernisation, A1 Telekom Austria replaced 68 ILA sites and 24 Add-Drop nodes across 6,478km of its fibre infrastructure. The integration of the new amplifiers posed significant technical challenges, particularly the migration of amplifiers between add-drop nodes, which had to be completed within the same maintenance window. However, through coordination with local partners, A1 Telekom Austria said it overcame these obstacles, ensuring the smooth execution of the project.
The modernisation process now means A1 can offer an enhanced and fully optimised network that serves customers across three best-in-class routes from the Turkish border to Frankfurt. A1 said this upgraded network provides robust connectivity to all major capitals and cities between Turkey and Germany.
“We are excited to introduce the latest technology to our international WDWM network, which will undoubtedly provide our customers with improved connectivity and future-proof performance,” said A1 Telekom Austria International business director Denis Filazafovitch (above).
He added: “This project demonstrates our commitment to innovation and our ability to work closely with local partners to deliver state-of-the-art infrastructure. The new network ensures that we are well-positioned to meet the increasing demands for bandwidth in the years ahead.”
“We are proud to work with A1 for the modernisation of its international network, where our services capabilities have been crucial to the overall project success,” said Nokia head of optical networks Europe Stefano Grieco. “The integration of our 1830 PSS system marks a significant milestone in enabling A1 to meet the ever-growing demand for high-capacity services. This upgrade not only enhances network performance and scalability but also reaffirms our commitment to providing innovative solutions that drive the future of connectivity.”
FT says MasOrange’s private equity backers considering a 2026 IPO
Separately, MasOrange’s fibre JV with Vodafone Spain is seeking an investor
The Financial Times reports [subscription needed] that the private equity backers of MasOrange are mulling the possibility of an initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, looking to “cash out some of their assets”.
MasOrange’s earnings report for its first full calendar year of operation, published in February, indicated that it is performing in line with expectations. It had total revenues of €7.388 billion in 2024, a 1.5% increase on the previous year. EBITDA increased 10.8% to €2.803 billion.
MasOrange said it expected to gain the projected synergies from the merger, having already saved about €120 million of the total projected €500 million savings. It added it is on schedule to exceed €300 million in savings in 2025.
Who owns MasOrange?
MasOrange was formed from the €20 billion merger of Orange Spain and MasMovil in 2022 to become Spain’s biggest operator. MasMovil was owned by KKR, Cinven and Providence Equity Partners. They bought MasMovil in 2020 for about €5 billion when it was Spain’s fourth largest operator behind Telefonica, Orange and Vodafone.
Citing unnamed sources, the FT article stressed that no final decision had been made.
Importantly, Orange has the option to buy a controlling stake in MasOrange at the IPO price.
Looking for fibre investor
Separately, MasOrange is apparently looking to sell as stake in the the fibre optic joint venture is announced in January, in partnership with Vodafone Spain. The two plan to build a fibre network that passes about 23 million premises. If an investor can be found, it will take a 40% stake, with MasOrange holding a 50% share and Vodafone Spain holding the remaining 10%.
Apparently the deal is expected to close in the first half of this calendar year.
CAMARA’s Spring25 Meta-release offers 13 new and 23 updated APIs
They have been vetted for quality, consistency, and stability through rigorous release management processes, the Linux Foundation says
The Linux Foundation’s CAMARA project, “the open source community addressing telco industry API interoperability”, announced its second official release, Meta-release Spring25. It contains 13 new and 23 updated APIs, making 36 in total that have been vetted for quality, consistency and stability.
These APIs are included in the Meta-release:
- Stable CAMARA APIs for Device Reachability Status, Device Roaming Status, Location Verification, Number Verification, One-time Password SMS, QoS Profiles, Quality On Demand, and SIM Swap.
- Updated Versions of existing CAMARA APIs for Applications Profiles, Call Forwarding Signal, Carrier Billing, Carrier Billing Refund, Connectivity Insights, KYC Fill-In, KYC Match, Location Retrieval, Population Density Data, QoD Provisioning, and the updated versions of APIs to subscribe for event notifications: Connectivity Insights Subscriptions, Device Reachability Status Subscriptions, Device Roaming Status Subscriptions, Geofencing Subscriptions, SIM Swap Subscriptions
- Initial versions of new CAMARA APIs, ready to be implemented by network operators for Blockchain Public Address, Connected Network Type (including Subscriptions), Customer Insights, Device Identifier, Device Swap, Know Your Customer Age Verification, Know Your Customer Tenure, Number Recycling, Region Device Count, WebRTC Call Handling, WebRTC Events and WebRTC Registration.
Guidelines
Meta-release Spring25 also includes updated CAMARA design guidelines with improvements to notifications, events and error responses. These changes have been applied by all APIs in the release. The Security and Interoperability Profile has also been revised to make it clearer and with more options for API providers to offer “secure, privacy-friendly and seamless access for developers to network information and capabilities”.
The APIs are organised in 19 different repositories, nine of which were recently promoted by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) to the “Incubated” stage: Call Forwarding Signal, Device Location, Device Status, Simple Edge Discovery, Number Verification, OTP Validation, Sim Swap, Know YourCustomer, Quality On Demand
Beyond the 10 Sandbox repositories which participated in the meta-release, there are 24 more Sandbox API repositories which is where work on the next wave of CAMARA APIs is underway.
To learn more about all CAMARA’s growing list of API families as well as specific APIs, please visit https://camaraproject.org/api-overview/.
Broad ecosystem support
“The Spring25 Meta-Release marks a…milestone in CAMARA’s mission to drive open, standardized APIs for the global telecom industry,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT at the Linux Foundation. “We’re continuing to see broad ecosystem support for CAMARA and its innovative APIs that empower developers, accelerate service innovation, and strengthen the ecosystem of open collaboration that is vital for the future of connectivity.”
Nathan Rader, CAMARA Governing Board Chair and VP, Service and Capability Exposure, Deutsche Telekom. “The availability of even more mature, stable telco APIs expands the possibilities for developers and organizations to harness this work more effectively, driving new opportunities across the ecosystem. We look forward to seeing how the industry leverages these enhancements to deliver next-generation services and experiences.”
CAMARA’s background
CAMARA was initiated in 2021 by a group of telcos, vendors and hyperscalers, then officially launched in February 2022 with 22 partners. It graduated to a funded model in September 2023, with 250 participating organisations and over 750 contributors. Since then, the project has grown to more than 1,250 contributors from 427 organisations. It has 11 API sub-projects, 21 sandbox projects, 60 APIs and five working groups. The project says its growth rate indicates “strong ecosystem support in enabling more accessible and standardized open telco APIs”.
The community is committed to delivering updates twice a year to vetted APIs so network operators can plan deployments within their networks
Pulsant acquires two edge data centres from SCC
The UK edge DC company continues to expand its footprint with the acquisition of SCC data centres in Birmingham and Fareham
Despite all of the focus remaining on the hyperscalers, data sovereignty and AI inference have brought back into focus the much maligned area of mobile edge compute and how this market demand may evolve, creating potential new network edge opportunities.
Some argue that the shift to AI-based applications will change the central versus edge demand pattern for compute. But the industry does risk repeating the some mobile edge pitfalls where the dream of edge servers delivering all manner of enterprise apps didn’t really happen for telcos. However,, smaller more regional data centres do present some opportunities around edge compute and this is where Pulsant is looking to make its mark.
Bu acquiring two data centres from European technology solutions and services provider SCC, Pulsant reckons the investment will strengthen its platformEDGE offering now that it has 12 data centres across the UK.
The carve out deal will include SCC’s Birmingham and Fareham data centres, as well as the transfer of a roster of colocation-only clients to Pulsant. In addition, the companies will form a new strategic partnership for critical colocation services across the UK, which includes access to Pulsant’s national network of data centres for all SCC clients.
Based in Birmingham, the Cole Valley data centre benefits from a central UK location. It has a power capacity of around 2MW with potential for expansion. Meanwhile, the Fareham data centre is a modern carrier-neutral facility, with a mix of corporate and service provider colocation customers with a slightly higher power capacity of around 3 MW. Both sites offer 25,000 sq ft of data centre white space.
Since 2021 when it was acquired by Antin Infrastructure Partners, Pulsant has had a history of acquiring and integrating regional data centres to expand its coverage and capabilities, and it reckons the the SCC investment will further strengthen its presence in the UK market. SCC acquired SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ Hampshire Data Centre in 2014, taking its total investment in data centres to more than £50 million.
Economic hubs
“With the addition of two new data centres, we’ve expanded our UK coverage, strengthening our presence near key economic hubs that have traditionally been underserved in terms of digital infrastructure – particularly Birmingham, the UK’s second city,” said Pulsant CEO Rob Coupland.
“This will enable more businesses to benefit from Pulsant’s unique network of data centres and platformEDGE to reach new markets and grow their organisations. We’re excited to welcome and support the high-quality client base transitioning to Pulsant and look forward to fostering their continued growth,” he said. “SCC has an outstanding reputation, and we’re delighted to partner with them to support clients with their future colocation requirements. We are also excited to welcome the new team members, working together to deliver high availability services.”
“SCC has been carefully reviewing options for the future of our data centres for some time. A clear priority was to find a specialist partner that will continue to invest in and operate these facilities for the long-term and with whom we can build a strategic relationship for the provision of these services to our clients,” said SCC co-CEO James Rigby. “Ensuring continuity for our customers, opportunities for our people, and a future-proofed infrastructure was critical in our decision.”
He added: “Our role in helping customers manage a range of hybrid workloads for optimum cost and performance remains a core value proposition and driver of our growth. We are delighted that this transaction further allows us to invest in our managed service hybrid offerings and to create a new and valued partnership with Pulsant for critical colocation services.”
The data centre engineers and operational team members from both locations will be transferred to Pulsant on completion of the deal, expected in April 2025.
Vivendi sells 15% stake in TIM to Post Italiane for just €684m
French media conglomerate sells most of its remaining stake to state-backed Poste – a fraction of the €4bn it invested in TIM over an eight year period
The French multimedia group Vivendi announced it has signed an agreement with Poste Italiane for the sale of 15.00% of TIM’s ordinary shares and voting rights for a total consideration of €684 million. The transaction will be complete after Vivendi’s notification to the Italian competition authority.
Post Italiane will replace the French congomeragte as the main investor in the operator group with a 24.8% holding. It acquired a 9.8% stake from state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) in a move supported by the Prime Minister’s office in February. CDP owns more than two-thirds of Poste.
Having recently reduced its holding to 18.4% from 23.8%, after the transaction, it will keep a minority interest, about 2.51% of ordinary shares and voting rights, in the Italian telecoms operator, and 1.80% of its share capital.
Disappointed investor
Vivendi has been unhappy with its investment in the Telecom Italia group for years and objected to KKR being allowed to buy a controlling share in the the fixed line NetCo, FiberCop, that was spun out of the organisation at the end of 2023. It is the only large network operator in Europe to have taken this step.
Vivendi first invested in the Telecom Italia group (TIM) in 2015 as part of a strategy to French tycoon Vincent Bollore’s goal of creating a media empire in southern European. Overall, the French media conglomerate invested €4 billion for its stake in the Italian operator over eight years.
During that time has had to write down the value of its investments as Telecom Italia’s shares have fallen, debt and competition have risen, and the board room has been beset by conflict and a succession of new management and strategies. (Bollore’s aggressive stake-building in the Italian broadcaster Mediaset didn’t go to plan, either.)
In the meantime, TIM’s boardroom battles raged for years. The KKR deal only went through after a long, tortuous process with many twists and turns, with the backing of the government. Vivendi continued to argue that the business and assets had been undervalued in the sale to KKR for about €22 billion (there are cash-out clauses and Vivendi wanted €30 billion) but now, according to Reuters, the French enterprise will drop its legal challenge against the sale.
Will peace break out in the boardroom?
It’s hard to say. Certainly Vivendi has made its presence felt in the boardroom, mostly in opposition, but there may be a different kind of conflict brewing. In Feburary, the Financial Times reported that FiberCop’s management predicted a shortfall in earnings of €449 million, putting prospective dividends in doubt.
As a result, in what the FT described as “an explosive board meeting, FiberCop’s CEO, Luigi Ferraris, quit. Apparently major investors would not accept that their projected billions of euros in dividend payments over the next five years would either have to be cut or the company would have to raise more public debt and risk a ratings downgrade.
Apparently, the main reason for the immediate shortfall was that more customers than expected had cancelled their fixed line subs. The management reportedly also said it expected a €2 billion EBIDTA shortfall over the next five years compared with KKR’s business plan.
This is not a good look for other investors who had come in with KKR – the Adu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Canadian pension fund CPP Investments, the Italian fund F2i and the Italian Treasury.
KKR is insisting that the new CEO, Massimo Sarmi, who was appointed to the board last year by the Italian Treasury, must seek approval from one of two specified KKR executives before making any significant decisions – according to an internal memo the FT says it has seen. Some costs are on hold and the revised 2025 budget is not likely to be ready before summer.
