MILAN (Reuters) - Telecom Italia (MI:TLIT) and Vodafone (LON:VOD) said on Thursday they plan to enter into a new infrastructure sharing partnership to enable faster deployment of fifth-generation mobile phone services over a wider geographic area and at a lower cost.
In addition, they also plan to evaluate combining their 22,000 telecom towers in Italy into a single entity, potentially merging Vodafone's tower infrastructure with that of INWIT, the masts group 60-percent owned by Telecom Italia.
Such combination would be structured in a way to be value accretive to all parties involved, Vodafone and Telecom Italia (TIM) said in a joint statement.
The potential combination would leave both parties with equal shareholdings and governance rights in INWIT, and ensure there is no obligation for either to launch a tender offer for INWIT's remaining shares.
The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding and have entered into an exclusivity agreement. They aim to conclude one or more of the planned initiatives in the course of this year.