Sunday, March 11, 2007

FastWeb Merger Pending?

FastWeb has suspended trading on its shares Monday, March 12. It held a board meeting on Friday, March 9 to consider its strategic options.

FastWeb has been looking for an opportunity to merge for over a year now. Tomorrow we may find out what is going to happen.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

probably someone who has some sort of presence in the wireless market. they have been pretty loud about their Wimax ambitions.
I wonder whether this move is a way to bypass regulatory issues...

Bob Larribeau said...

Rumors are starting to emerge that Swisscom will make a cash offer to buy FastWeb.

I think that Silvio Scaglia, founder and largest individual shareholder of FastWeb, is driving the move to merge. He has wanted to liquidate his FastWeb holdings for a long time. FastWeb paid a one time dividend of $300 million to provide him cash.

Scaglia has said that he does not see FastWeb as the company that he wants to be involved with over the long term. In a conference call he said that it is not an asset that he wants to leave to his children.

Anonymous said...

thanks Bob

If it is Swisscom, then it should put more pressure over TI. Seems like every tier-1 european carrier is spreading to other european markets. Pehraps in few years time, each carrier would serve the majority of the european market. TI itself and DT already have a pretty impressive footprint, don't u think?

Bob Larribeau said...

You have put your finger on an important trend in Europe. Such an acquisition would seem to make a lot of sense for Swisscom. We should all know tomorrow.