Eurobites: TIM arranges €1.5B loan to see it through NetCo-sale limbo

Telecom Italia (TIM) has negotiated a €1.5 billion (US$1.6 billion) bridging loan to help tide it over until it manages to offload its fixed-line infrastructure via its proposed NetCo sale to KKR, a US-based private equity firm. BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Santander and UniCredit are stumping up the cash.

A1 Austria has closed its acquisition of IT services provider NTT Austria following approval by the regulatory authorities. The deal follows A1's acquisition of NTT's Alcatel-Lucent telephony business in the spring of 2021. NTT's other Austrian offshoot, NTT Data Dach Austria, will continue doing business in its present form.

Irish broadband provider SIRO has completed the first phase of its fiber build in the town of Kingscourt, with around 600 premises connected. The remaining 500 premises will be fully hooked up by the end of the month. The Kingscourt build is part of a wider rollout that will see more than 700,000 premises in over 150 towns and cities across Ireland covered by 2026.

Telefónica Tech has landed a five-year contract to manage the IT needs of Dublin's soon-to-be opened "digital children's hospital." The Spanish company will oversee all servers, storage, security, PCs, printers, workstations on wheels and laptops in the new facility. The digital platform will also support the hospital's new electronic patient record system.

Russia's antitrust authority isn't happy with the way that Apple is, in the authority's eyes at least, restricting its citizens' access to banking and payment services on Apple devices. As Reuters reports, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said most Russian banks had disappeared from the App Store and that Apple was not letting users install apps from outside the App Store, preventing Russian banking apps and contactless services from working. A sternly worded letter has been written.