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

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: A1 Austria closes NTT deal; SIRO rolls on in Ireland; Telefónica Tech wins hospital contract in Dublin.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

April 5, 2024

2 Min Read
TIM storefront
(Source: Arcansel/Alamy Stock Photo)
  • 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.

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About the Author

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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