Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: eir in talks to buy Setanta; lawyers smell TalkTalk blood; Deutsche Telekom bans phones for Christmas.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

November 20, 2015

2 Min Read
Eurobites: Vivendi Spooks Telecom Italia Shareholders

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: eir in talks to buy Setanta; lawyers smell TalkTalk blood; Deutsche Telekom bans phones for Christmas.

  • Vivendi 's growing interest in Telecom Italia is making some other shareholders in the Italian incumbent nervous, reports Reuters. The French media conglomerate is now the largest shareholder in Telecom Italia, with a 20.116% stake, and it is looking to appoint three of its top executives to the board. Now a group of Italian and foreign funds has written a letter to Telecom Italia's top brass, asking them to urgently examine Vivendi's request.

    • Ireland's eir (formerly known as eir ) is in advanced talks to buy Setanta Sports, the Dublin-based pay-TV broadcaster, according to the Irish Times. Only last week Setanta signed a multi-year extension to its current deal with BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA), which allows its customers to receive BT's sports channels as part of the Setanta pack.

    • Qatari mobile operator Ooredoo has signed a five-year extension of its agreement with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , which will see the Chinese vendor supply a range of technologies and services. Earlier this week Ooredoo announced a similar deal with Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC).

    • The lawyers are beginning to encircle TalkTalk , the UK broadband provider that hit the headlines last month when it was the victim of a cyber attack that compromised the personal details of nearly 157,000 of its 4 million customers. The Guardian reports that a second law firm, based in Wales, is looking into mounting a class action against TalkTalk on behalf of aggrieved customers who have had their bank details and more taken. (See TalkTalk Plummets on Security Woes.)

    • Two rival bidders have emerged for Bulgaria's Vivacom , which is being put up for sale by owner VTB Capital. As Reuters reports, in the blue corner is Bulgarian businessman Spas Roussev, and in the red is the combination of Olympia Group and hedge fund Third Point.

    • Here's something you don't hear every day: a telecom operator asking its customers not to use the phone quite so much. Well, for one day anyway. It's all part of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) 's Christmas-related ad campaign, which sets out to show the joy to be had sitting, deviceless, around the turkey and trimmings and actually, you know, talking to each other on December 25. That's just weird.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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