All Vodafone Italy’s assets will be acquired by the Swiss giant’s Italian subsidiary, Fastweb, if the deal goes ahead
Vodafone confirmed it is in talks to sell its Italian opco to Swisscom, having turned down a merger offer from Iliad group in January. Reports that Swisscom and Vodafone were in talks about the latter’s Italian opco surfaced last November.
The deal is part of CEO Margherita Della Valle’s mission to offload subsidiaries in underperforming markets and simplify the group’s structure. Vodafone said in a statement that a sale to Swisscom would be ““the best combination of value creation, upfront cash proceeds and transaction certainty for Vodafone shareholders”.
Swisscom stated, “While the full terms of the transaction are yet to be defined, Swisscom and Vodafone Group have agreed on a preliminary purchase price for Vodafone Italia of €8bn on a cash and debt-free basis.” Swisscom would acquire all of Vodafone Italy’s assets.
And continued, “The planned merger of Vodafone Italia and Fastweb would bring together complementary high-quality mobile and fixed infrastructures, competencies, and capabilities to create a leading converged challenger.
“The increased scale, more efficient cost structure and significant synergy potential would enable the combined entity to unlock value for all stakeholders. The transaction would be a key step to allow Swisscom to fulfil its objective to achieve long-term value creation in Italy and would be fully compliant with the Federal Councils’ strategic objectives for Swisscom.”