The Italian government has greenlighted a €1.8 billion ($2.1 billion) deal between KKR and Telecom Italia (TIM) just weeks after it was pushed back to Aug. 31 on a government request, according to Reuters.
The deal would see KKR take a 37.5 percent stake in TIM’s “last-mile grid” known as FiberCop, a copper and fiber network linking to customers’ homes.
In early August, the transaction was postponed by the government to buy more time to negotiate a merger of its network assets with rival Open Fiber to create a single fast broadband network.
The companies, along with Enel, have been in talks since June 2019 about combining their assets, but have so far failed to come to a decision. It is now expected to be approved at TIM’s Aug. 31 board meeting.
