Telecom Italia Is Said to Bid for BT Unit

Telecom Italia made a takeover offer for BT’s Italian business, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. That's giving a momentum to an asset sale that would help the U.K. telecommunication giant move on from an accounting scandal on the continent,.

The bid from Italy’s largest phone company is non-binding, said the people, who asked not to be identified. Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison’s Wind Tre and fiber carrier Retelit also expressed interested in the unit, they said. BT Italia is seen as potentially valuable to a buyer because it serves major corporate customers including Eni, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Mediaset.

A sale of BT Italia would close a painful chapter for its owner, which took a 530 million-pound writedown in 2017 in the wake of revelations of improper accounting practices at the unit. A deal would also hand Philip Jansen, the Worldpay boss who starts next month as BT’s chief executive officer, a clean slate. The former British monopoly is restructuring its Global Services IT business, cutting thousands of jobs and shedding assets as it retreats from data storage contracts.

Financial details of the bids weren’t immediately available. BT Italia had revenue of about 390 million euros in fiscal 2017-2018 and a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, people familiar with the matter said in December. For Telecom Italia, the offer comes as the indebted phone company prepares for a corporate-governance showdown between its two largest shareholders.

French media company Vivendi lost control of Telecom Italia to U.S. activist Elliott Management last May and has been seeking to propose a new slate of directors and restore its influence. The Telecom Italia board agreed to set the carrier’s annual shareholder meeting for March 29, the company said in an emailed statement. That’s earlier than the previous plan for April and will allow investors to vote on Vivendi’s slate.