MILAN (Reuters) – Iliad, the parent company of telecoms operator Free, announced on Tuesday that it had taken a 12% stake in Unieuro, thus becoming the largest shareholder in the Italian distributor of consumer electronics.
The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed but Xavier Niel’s group said in a press release that it wanted to strengthen Unieuro’s growth prospects.
Iliad built most of the stake through an investment in the market totaling between 40 and 50 million euros, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Unieuro’s market cap stands at around 440 million euros at Tuesday’s closing price. The Italian group achieved a turnover of 2.7 billion euros in its annual financial year ended February 28.
Iliad launched into mobile telephony in 2018 in Italy and the group plans to offer a fixed offer in the country this summer.
(Elisa Anzolin; French version Claude Chendjou, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)