(Bloomberg) -- Telecom Italia SpA Chief Executive Officer Pietro Labriola has been authorized by the company’s board of directors to negotiate a €700 million ($767 million) non-binding bid for its submarine cable unit.
Labriola will hold exclusive talks with the bidders for the business, called Sparkle, seeking a binding offer by Nov. 30, according to a statement on Friday.
Earlier this week, the Italian government made a new offer for Sparkle, as asset that the administration of Premier Giorgia Meloni considers strategic. The country’s Finance Ministry made the bid along with Retelit SpA, which is controlled by Spanish investment firm Asterion Industrial Partners. Telecom Italia rejected an initial offer earlier this year.
Sparkle operates over 600,000 kilometers of cables connecting countries including Israel and the US. Subsea cables are one of the core pieces of fiber infrastructure facilitating global data flow, including sensitive information.
In March, Bloomberg News reported that Italy was considering teaming up with Asterion for a possible joint bid for Sparkle.
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