Tim, Kkr, Vivendi, the network and the paeans
As some newspapers have commented and analyzed KKR's offer for the TIM network. Francis Walsingham's letter
Dear director,
I'm continuing to read Italian newspapers, as per your advice, and therefore I don't think I'll surprise you if I confess that I'm very passionate about the Tim-Kkr affair due to the obvious intertwining of economic, financial and geopolitical issues . In short, it's a match for my teeth.
However, I am not a great fan of Greek literature, but I couldn't help but dwell on the paean intoned today by the newspaper MF-Milano Finanza in honor of Tim's board of directors (made up of "serious administrators", I read) and of the college union ("equally scrupulous") for having expressed their opinion in favor of the operation with Kkr. A decision that I understand to have been "thorough and considered" (we fail to mention that 3 directors did not vote in favour). It should be normal, also because we are talking about a large company listed on the Ftse Mib and not my barber. But who am I to deny singing to a bard? That multifaceted board of directors, tell me…
But I digress (and it's your fault, dear editor: because we know that Italian journalists like to delight in their refined prose and they infect me). I digress but I have to get back to the point because that MF-Milano Finanza article makes a correct observation: if Vivendi, Tim's single largest shareholder and against the operation with KKR, is truly convinced that the network is not worth 20 billion euros but 30 billion, why didn't he organize himself to buy it?
I would also like to point out to you, dear editor – but I already know that you will not have missed it – an article by Paolo Mastrolilli in Repubblica , for which he is nothing less than a correspondent from the United States. Mastrolilli is someone who frequents the circles of the so-called "apparatuses", i.e. the US Department of State and the Department of Defense, of which he tends to report moods and positions. I imagine that Mastrolilli has given voice to their opinion this time too, given the praise he spent on the sale of Tim's network to Kkr, a fund based in New York .
Through the operation, writes Mastrolilli, Kkr will take on Tim's debt and will make the company “freer to use the 'cash flow' to modernize the infrastructure. The expected figure is around 10 billion, to switch the network entirely from copper to optical fiber. A fundamental technological turning point for Italy, which would thus become a totally wired country, where digitalisation could really work […]. These proceeds, minus costs, will not be used to generate dividends, but to make the investments necessary to replace the copper parts with optical fiber. Once the operation is complete, the network will only need maintenance, and rentals will begin to generate profits. At that point, estimated between 5 and 6 years, KKR will be released."
All beautiful, in short. I have a doubt, however (and I deliberately leave aside the expressions that are a little too salivating for my tastes): but where did Mastrolilli get all this data? How do you know that "the investment horizon of the American fund KKR in Tim's network is five or six years, the time needed to renovate it and put it back on the market"? The operation for the sale of the network is not even concluded (it will be by summer 2024), yet Repubblica 's correspondent from the States already informs us about the duration of Kkr's investment. Information that perhaps the American giant could also convey to the market as well as to Mastrolilli.
Finally, I would like to point out a gem especially for you, dear director. Key4biz , the newspaper specializing in the digital economy directed by Raffaele Barberio – who is also a consultant to the undersecretary of the Prime Minister, Alessio Butti, who also follows the single network dossier – opened yesterday with an article on "Vivendi's new war in Italy ” because of the Tim-Kkr operation. Except that the Key4biz article is not really a Key4biz article: it is a reworking of what was also written by the French newspaper Le Figaro . One might logically think that Butti – via Barbero – is attentive to the positions of Vivendi and Merlyn (a plan not exactly far from the Minerva Plan that Butti illustrated ). But I'm not a journalist and therefore I don't have a conspiracy theory.
However, to return to the piece in question, nothing wrong, for goodness sake: journalism is also about reworking and contextualising the work of others. However, for a director like Barberio (who claims to write "to determine what will happen tomorrow" rather than "what happened yesterday") and for a newspaper like Key4biz (which deals only with the digital economy, telecommunications and similar subjects) I It seems serious that on the matter of Tim's network he has nothing else to say other than what Le Figaro has already said. On the other hand, Key4biz published an interview with the secretary of Uilcom who is opposed to KKR. From someone like Barberio, who doesn't deal with "marginal things", I would have expected a conversation with a protagonist of the operation, rather than with the secretary of the federation of workers in the sector which is part of the third largest Italian trade union…
But what do I want to know, anyway. I who, at most, read to find out what could happen tomorrow; I'm not writing to determine what will happen.
Best regards,
Francis Walsingham
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tim-kkr-vivendi-la-rete-e-i-peana/ on Wed, 08 Nov 2023 12:32:33 +0000.