Sparkle joins MANTA cable project as sale decision looms

While its future hangs in the balance – the Italian state needs to come up with a binding takeover bid by the end of next month – Sparkle is keeping itself busy by focusing on its core business: rolling out subsea cables. The MANTA announcement is its second in as many days, the telco having shared details of a partnership with Saudi Arabia's Mobily on a new Europe-South East Asia route on Tuesday.

Liberty Networks and Gold Data announced plans to work together on a new cable system in the Americas at the back end of last year. The idea was to bring together two subsea systems to offer two diverse routes with the shortest latency from Mexico to the US, as well as adding connectivity further south to Colombia and Panama.

Liberty Networks and Gold Data said they would invest in and operate the northern segment of the system, known as GD-1, together, while Liberty Networks would fully own the southern segment, LN-1. They were aiming to have the system up and running by the second half of 2026.

Things have now changed a little. Sparkle will collaborate with them on the construction and commercialisation of the system, they announced, working with the parties on both the northern and southern legs of the cable (see map).

And the projected launch date has been pushed back; the companies are now looking at a 2027 launch. They have yet to announce their technology partner, but said they will do so soon.

"We are thrilled to collaborate with Liberty Networks and Gold Data on this groundbreaking project," said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. "MANTA will establish the foundation for future innovations that drive digital acceleration throughout the region. Together, we are committed to building a new pan-regional subsea cable system that meets the growing demands of businesses and customers across the region."

Bagnasco had a similar reaction to Sparkle's newly-announced cable system partnership with Mobily, talking up its ability to "enable better communication between Europe and the Indo-Pacific while accelerating the development of digital services in all the countries crossed."

That deal will see the two operators work together to create a new digital corridor linking Italy with Singapore, via Saudi Arabia, using Sparkle's and Mobily's terrestrial networks and the AAE1 cable in Jeddah.

"This new diverse route will enhance the resiliency of global network connectivity between East/Middle East to Europe, thereby supporting the growth of Data Centers and content diversification for OTTs and Hyperscalers in the region," explained Thamer A. Alfadda, SVP Wholesale of Mobily.

Subsea cable services are what Sparkle does best and it must be refreshing for Bagnasco to be able to comment on major deals at a time when much of his attention is doubtless focused on his company's ongoing ownership uncertainty.

Earlier this month the Italian government tabled a bid for Sparkle that values it at €700 million, some eight months after it made its first approach. TIM had asked for more money and clearly it took the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and partner Retelit some time to decide how much they were willing to pay.

That €700 million bid is clearly sitting relatively comfortably with TIM, whose board looked at it immediately and instructed CEO Pietro Labriola to go and do a deal. Whether the price will change is unclear, but the chief exec has until 30 November to secure "a binding offer under the best terms and conditions."

It's probably optimistic to suggest that Sparkle's ownership could be resolved by Christmas, given the way it has dragged to date, but we should be a whole lot clearer on what a takeover deal will look like by then. And in the meantime, its business as usual for Sparkle.