(Bloomberg) -- Italy is preparing a bid to buy Telecom Italia SpA’s submarine cables unit Sparkle in a consortium with Spanish investment firm Asterion Industrial Partners, according to a La Repubblica report.
The offer is expected to be “slightly higher” than a previous one for €750 million ($837 million), filed by Italy’s Finance Ministry at the beginning of this year and rejected by Telecom Italia, the newspaper reported on Sunday, without saying where it obtained the information.
In March, Bloomberg News reported that Italy was considering teaming up with Asterion for a possible joint bid for Sparkle.
The company operates over 600,000 kilometers (373,000 miles) of cables connecting countries including Israel and the US, which give it strategic importance for Italy’s government. Subsea cables are among the main fiber infrastructure enabling worldwide data flow, potentially including sensitive information.
After closing a sale of Telecom Italia’s network grid to KKR & Co. Inc. for as much as €22 billion, Chief Executive Officer Pietro Labriola is looking to “play an active role” amid a wave of consolidation in the fragmented Italian market. This year, Swisscom AG struck a deal to buy Vodafone Italia for €8 billion and combine the carrier with its own Fastweb SpA business.
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