EU approves sale of TIM’s fixed line network to KKR

The European Commission has given Telecom Italia’s (TIM) the greenlight for the acquisition by private equity outfit KKR of TIM’s NetCo.

Source: Alamy.com

The European Commission confirmed under EU regulation the merge would not raise competition concerns on the market for wholesale broadband access services in Italy.

NetCo will be contributed to the TIM and KKR jointly-owned FiberCop at the closing of the transaction for the sale of the fixed network to the private equity which is expected in the summer of 2024.

FiberCop, based in Italy, provides passive-only services on TIM’s secondary network and upgrades TIM’s secondary assets from copper to fibre in Italy.

Once the deal is complete, NetCo will provide, among others, wholesale fixed access services on both its copper and fibre networks in Italy.

The EU said: “KKR would not have the ability to restrict access to passive services (i.e., infrastructure). For each wholesale product the number of available networks and wholesale providers will stay the same and the market power of NetCo will not materially increase as compared to TIM or FiberCop today. The existing long-term agreements with several access seekers, including Fastweb and Iliad, which have been entered into after the creation of FiberCop in 2021, ensure that KKR will not be able to deteriorate the conditions for wholesale access or terminate such access.

“The transaction would not increase the likelihood of coordination between NetCo and OpenFiber, given that Fastweb will continue to exert competitive pressure on NetCo and its long-standing competitor, Open Fiber. In addition, NetCo and Open Fiber will likely continue to compete, both to attract new customers and to roll-out fibre network, either in new areas or in each other’s areas.”

In a statement, TIM said the EC approval means that the transaction will be completed on schedule.