by Milana Vinn and Amy-Jo Crowley

(Reuters) – French private equity firm Ardian is considering an offer for Italian telecommunications tower operator INWIT, valued on the stock market at 11 billion euros, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ardian, which is INWIT’s second largest shareholder behind Germany’s Vantage Towers AG, is keen to delist the Italian group and is working with JPMorgan bank on a possible takeover bid, the sources added.

On the Milan Stock Exchange, the INWIT title climbed Thursday morning by more than 4% after this information.

Telecom towers in Europe are highly sought-after assets by investors, due to their stable yield and long-term contracts.

Last year, Deutsche Telekom sold 51% of its Funkturm tower business to a consortium made up of Canada’s Brookfield and US investment firm DigitalBridge.

Any bid on INWIT could take months to materialize as preparations are only at an early stage, one of the sources said.

Ardian is considering partnering with another investor to help fund the acquisition, given its size, the source added.

The presence of Vantage Towers in the capital of INWIT could complicate things because the German group presents itself as a long-term shareholder of the Italian group, said one of the sources.

Ardian holds approximately 30% of INWIT’s capital and Vantage 33%.

The sources warned that an offer was not certain and asked not to be identified due to the confidentiality of the ongoing discussions.

Ardian, Vantage Towers, INWIT and JPMorgan declined to comment.

The INWIT group, resulting from the demerger of the telecom towers of Telecom Italia, merged in 2020 with the pylons activity of Vodafone in Italy. It operates more than 23,000 telecommunications towers in the country.

(With contributions from Elvira Pollina in Milan, Blandine Hénault for the , edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)

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