TIM in focus on the day of the meeting: Vivendi abstains, Board list in pole – Economy and Finance

(Teleborsa) – The rally continues TIM on the stock exchangewith an increase of over 4% and voluminous trading, on the day in question the assembly meets of the members to give the green light to the new Board of Directors. A highly anticipated event preceded by numerous twists and turns, first and foremost the “alternative” projects of the sources present in the capital and also the discontent of its main shareholder Vivendi, who has never made a secret of his disapproval of the choices of the Board and CEO Pietro Labriola on the future of the network.

Vivendi will abstain

On the eve of the meeting, Vivendi announced its abstention from the meeting regarding the vote on the new Board. And so implicitly, the Board of Directors’ list with Pietro Labriola as CEO and Alberta Figari as President is moving towards victory.

Vivendi reiterated in a note that it is “a supporting shareholder” of TIM and underlined that “as a financial investor, the concern is that the Board of Directors and the management of TIM guarantee a lasting growth in value of actions through dsound business decisions in the interest of societyrespectful of the prerogatives of shareholders and the principles of good governance”.

For this reason the French company the outgoing Council will not voteaccused of having caused the shares to “lose half of their value” and of having approved the spin-off and sale of the network “at a price that does not reflect the real value of the asset and without involving the shareholders’ meeting”.

The votes in favor of the current Board

For the Board’s list, Pietro Labriola will in fact remain CEO of TIM, with his plan to unbundle the network, having already received the support of CDP, proxy advisors (ISS and Glass Lewiss) and Equita.

Specifically, the proxy advisor Glass Lewis, in his report in preparation for the meeting, he advised shareholders to vote for the board of directors’ list and not that of the funds Merlyn, Bluebell and small shareholders (Asati)believing that are not “in the interests of the shareholders”. For the union council, it is recommended to vote for the Vivendi list except for the president, chosen from among the Sgr’s candidates.

Also the other proxy advisor ISS advised to choose the Board List which represents “the best option for the implementation of the new business plan”while the other lists “could lead to a change in company strategy”.

The funds will vote against

However, no support will come from Merlyn fundsled by Alessandro Barnaba, and Bluebell by Giuseppe Bivona, who presented their own alternative projectseven diametrically opposed to the spin-off plan implemented by Labriola.

According to Equita analysts, Merlyn’s “TValue” plan would be “unclear on the strategy” and above all would risk producing serious delays in execution, in an attempt to “call into question” the agreements made with KKR in a negotiation table with unions, suppliers, customers, shareholders and government. to