CK Hutchison cancels sale of 3.4 billion euro Italian network unit

CK HUTCHISON Holdings cancelled the sale of a majority stake in its Italian network infrastructure portfolio to private equity firm EQT AB.

“Conditions precedent to closing of the transaction were not satisfied,” CK Hutchison said in a company filing on Tuesday (Feb 13).

CK Hutchison operates Wind Tre SpA in Italy, the country’s third-largest mobile carrier. The deal had set an enterprise value for the network company of 3.4 billion euros (S$4.92 billion).

Italy is one of the most competitive telecom markets in Europe, in part because of Iliad, which moved into the country in 2018 offering cheaper, no-frills mobile plans that sparked a price war. 

Last year, the former mobile monopoly Telecom Italia sold its landline network to the US private equity firm KKR in a monster deal that valued the grid at as much as 22 billion euros. BLOOMBERG