Leveraging Tiscali’s commercial participation in the newly established FiberCop co-investment project, the collaboration will involve the transfer of TIM’s secondary network, the participation of the KKR Infrastructure Fund, and the current activities of FlashFiber, a joint-venture between TIM and Fastweb.
The first phase of the project involves streamlining Tiscali’s network to support the migration of its customers to FiberCop's ultra-broadband network. This will also allow Tiscali to reduce its network infrastructure costs and avoid duplications.
As for the medium to long term stages of development, and in line with FiberCop’s development plan, the agreement will allow Tiscali to activate a significant part of its accesses on the newly established network.
TIM and Tiscali will subsequently also review the possibility of Tiscali acquiring a stake in FiberCop through a specific branch of business, with terms yet to be agreed.
The news follows an announcement made at the start of the month where TIM’s board approved a proposal from private equity company KKR to acquire a share in its fixed network.
The board said that it “favourably acknowledged” the proposal from KKR Infrastructure in association with FiberCop, the unit that owns TIM’s fibre and copper last-mile network.
KKR has offered €1.8 billion for 37.5% of FiberCop on the basis of an enterprise value of approximately €7.7 billion, while Fastweb – owned by Swisscom – will have 4.5% of the share capital of FiberCorp in exchange for the transfer of the 20% currently held in Flash Fiber, said TIM.
