Markets Magazine
Telecom Italia Is Odd Man Out in European Merger Wave
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On a muggy June afternoon, almost a year to the day after he took control of Telecom Italia, Chairman and Chief Executive Roberto Colaninno told 100 investors at Cipriani's restaurant in Manhattan how Europe's fifth-largest phone company planned to wire up Italian cities with advanced fiber-optic cable, sell mobile phones linked to the Internet, and transform Telecom Italia into Telecom World by investing overseas.
Investors shrugged. Telecom's share price rose 0.8 percent the next day and has slid 7 percent since then, in line with other European telephone stocks, to close at 14.41 euros ($13.46) on July 24.