TIM buoyant as buyers line upTIM buoyant as buyers line up

There have been rumours over investor interest in TIM for the past few months, but to date we have been mainly talking about a possible private equity buyout. Now there are several more options on the table with many permeations to take into account.

There has been no official comment from TIM as yet, so it's all talk at this stage, but there is certainly a lot of it.

The latest to throw its hat into the ring – or perhaps more accurately, the latest to be added to the rumour roster – is Poste Italiane. The Italian post office, which also runs a successful MVNO, made headlines with myriad media outlets reporting that it is looking to extend its presence in the mobile market by merging with TIM.

There's not a huge amount to go on at this stage. The rumour, which seems to have come from Il Foglio, but was quickly picked up by a raft of other publications, simply suggests that Poste Italiane is studying the idea of a full expansion into telecoms.

It's a hypothetical plan, but one not without credibility, given that the firm already has a decent foundation in mobile on which it could build and a strong retail and brand presence in Italy. Its mobile market share, excluding M2M and IoT, stood at 5.5% as of the end of September, according to regulator Agcom, making it the biggest player after the four network operators.

As La Stampa, which also claims to have verified the Poste Italiane report, points out, Poste Mobile runs on the Vodafone network. While that has little bearing on any early negotiations, it could be a tempting prospect for TIM, which would surely secure itself a new wholesale customer should a deal emerge, and would also give the regulators something to think about from a competition perspective.

Similarly, any deal between Iliad and TIM would doubtless raise regulatory eyebrows.

The Italian press is awash with talk of a tie-up between the French owner of Iliad Italia, although the original story appears to have come from Bloomberg, as per Websim. The deal being discussed would see Iliad merge its Italian business with TIM Consumer and take a 35% stake in the resulting entity.

Such a deal makes sense on paper; it would return TIM to the top spot in the Italian mobile market and reduce competition, which has been fierce since the creation of WindTre and launch of Iliad almost seven years ago.

But the complications around it are manifold, including, but not limited to, the companies' ability to persuade the Italian government that a further break-up of TIM would be a good idea, and whether or not they could secure the support of TIM's major shareholder Vivendi.

There have been reports that Vivendi is keen to sell out; CVC Capital, Bain Capital and Apax Partners were all linked with the French group's 24% stake last year. But while Vivendi could be looking to monetise its asset – at the right price – it could equally decide to stick around and have its say with regard to TIM's future.

A quick conclusion to this story seems unlikely. Poste Italiane is apparently holding a board meeting on Monday but TIM is not on the agenda. However, TIM's board is due to sit on Wednesday, so there could be some form of comment from the telco later this week, although it is by no means certain.

In the meantime, TIM can enjoy seeing green on its share price chart. The telco was trading at 30 cents per share at the time of writing. As Milano Finanza points out, that's a price it has not seen since December 2023.