Latest news with #ElviraPollina
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Italy struggles to revive lagging fibre rollout plan
By Elvira Pollina MILAN: A push by Italy's government for state-backed telecoms firms Open Fiber and FiberCop to accelerate work on a European Union-funded network plan has hit a snag as the companies are struggling to agree terms of a potential deal, three sources said. FiberCop and its smaller rival Open Fiber were entrusted with cabling more than 3 million buildings across Italy by the end of June 2026 under a 3.4 billion euro ($3.9 billion)programme aimed at rolling out ultra-fast broadband networks. Only around half of the targeted 3.4 million buildings have been upgraded, latest government data showed, with Open Fiber, which was awarded 2.2 million buildings, lagging behind FiberCop in its work. Italy has said it was considering handing KKR-backed FiberCop some of the work assigned to rival Open Fiber to speed up the rollout as it tries to meet the deadline agreed as part of a COVID-19 recovery plan. FiberCop had said it was ready to take over in full the work assigned to its rival. But government-sponsored talks between the two companies proved difficult, with FiberCop offering to take over the work at cost price by the end of this month, the sources say. Open Fiber is pushing back on such terms, arguing it would be hard to complete a potential spin-off of its areas swiftly and agreeing a fair valuation for them would take some months, the people said. Open Fiber's board of directors will discuss the situation at a board meeting on Tuesday but the chances of an agreement to hand FiberCop some of the areas are seen as low at this stage, the people said. Open Fiber and FiberCop declined to comment. Italy lags European peers in high-speed fixed-line internet coverage, with some 60% of households having access to ultrafast broadband against an EU average of 79%, according to EU data. A senior official from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office said it is up to the companies to take the steps needed for an agreement and that time is running short. Open Fiber is 60% owned by state lender CDP with the remainder in the hands of Australian fund Macquarie. FiberCop was spun off last year from former state telco Telecom Italia (TIM) and sold to a KKR-led consortium, including Italy's economy ministry, under a deal worth up to 22 billion euros. Italy's conservative government is also keen to combine Open Fiber assets with those of FiberCop to create a wholesale-only telecommunications network provider under state control.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Italy struggles to revive lagging fibre rollout plan
By Elvira Pollina MILAN (Reuters) -A push by Italy's government for state-backed telecoms firms Open Fiber and FiberCop to accelerate work on a European Union-funded network plan has hit a snag as the companies are struggling to agree terms of a potential deal, three sources said. FiberCop and its smaller rival Open Fiber were entrusted with cabling more than 3 million buildings across Italy by the end of June 2026 under a 3.4 billion euro ($3.9 billion)programme aimed at rolling out ultra-fast broadband networks. Only around half of the targeted 3.4 million buildings have been upgraded, latest government data showed, with Open Fiber, which was awarded 2.2 million buildings, lagging behind FiberCop in its work. Italy has said it was considering handing KKR-backed FiberCop some of the work assigned to rival Open Fiber to speed up the rollout as it tries to meet the deadline agreed as part of a COVID-19 recovery plan. FiberCop had said it was ready to take over in full the work assigned to its rival. But government-sponsored talks between the two companies proved difficult, with FiberCop offering to take over the work at cost price by the end of this month, the sources say. Open Fiber is pushing back on such terms, arguing it would be hard to complete a potential spin-off of its areas swiftly and agreeing a fair valuation for them would take some months, the people said. Open Fiber's board of directors will discuss the situation at a board meeting on Tuesday but the chances of an agreement to hand FiberCop some of the areas are seen as low at this stage, the people said. Open Fiber and FiberCop declined to comment. Italy lags European peers in high-speed fixed-line internet coverage, with some 60% of households having access to ultrafast broadband against an EU average of 79%, according to EU data. A senior official from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office said it is up to the companies to take the steps needed for an agreement and that time is running short. Open Fiber is 60% owned by state lender CDP with the remainder in the hands of Australian fund Macquarie. FiberCop was spun off last year from former state telco Telecom Italia (TIM) and sold to a KKR-led consortium, including Italy's economy ministry, under a deal worth up to 22 billion euros. Italy's conservative government is also keen to combine Open Fiber assets with those of FiberCop to create a wholesale-only telecommunications network provider under state control. ($1 = 0.8783 euros)
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Italy's CDP, Macquarie at odds over future of loss-making Open Fiber, sources say
By Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte MILAN (Reuters) -Italian state lender CDP and its partner Macquarie are at odds over the future of their loss-making fibre network operator Open Fiber, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The standoff risks slowing down efforts by Italy's conservative government to combine Open Fiber with larger rival FiberCop, the network unit Telecom Italia sold last year to a pool of investors comprising KKR and Italy's Treasury. CDP, which owns 60% of Open Fiber, is keen to merge the operator's assets with those of FiberCop to create a wholesale-only telecommunications network provider under state control. But in the view of Australian fund Macquarie, Open Fiber needs to spin-off fibre assets in the most densely populated and profitable areas to ensure a smooth antitrust review for any combination with FiberCop, one of the sources said. Macquarie, which spent 2.12 billion euros ($2.4 billion) to buy a 40% stake in Open Fiber in 2021, would be ready to take over those assets, the same source said. Macquarie declined to comment. However, CDP is not willing to hand over those areas as they represent Open Fiber's most valuable assets and are key to ensuring that the company is valued fairly in any deal with FiberCop, according to a second source. Industry experts said those areas could be valued at 4-6 billion euros, including debt. The structure of any potential deal needs to be negotiated yet and may emerge in a one-year timeframe, the second source said. Any potential combination between FiberCop and Open Fiber needs to be cleared by European Union antitrust authorities. CDP is confident Brussels could demand the sale of only a portion of Open Fiber's network assets in the most densely populated areas to preserve competition, the second source said. FiberCop was valued at 18.8 billion euros in the KKR deal, when including some 9 billion euro in debts. CDP declined to comment. Open Fiber, which Italy's government tasked with rolling out fibre optic cables across the country almost a decade ago, posted a 364 million euro loss last year and forecast reaching a positive cash flow in 2028 at the latest. ($1 = 0.8817 euros) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Star
19-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Italy's data watchdog fines AI company Replika's developer $5.6 million
FILE PHOTO: An undated handout image from U.S. startup Replika shows a user interacting with a smartphone app to customize an avatar for a personal artificial intelligence chatbot, known as a Replika, in San Francisco, California, U.S. Luka, Inc./Handout via REUTERS/File Photo MILAN (Reuters) -Italy's data protection agency has fined the developer of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot company Replika 5 million euros ($5.64 million) for breaching rules designed to protect users' personal data, the authority said on Monday. Launched in 2017, San Francisco-based startup Replika offers users customised avatars that can have conversations with them. The 'virtual friend' is marketed as being able to improve the emotional wellbeing of users. Italian privacy watchdog Garante ordered Replika to suspend its service in the country in February 2023, citing specific risks to children. Following an investigation, it found that Replika lacked a legal basis for processing users' data and had no age-verification system to restrict children from accessing the service, resulting in the fine for its developer, Luka Inc. Replika did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Italian authority has also announced a separate investigation to assess whether Replika's generative AI system is compliant with European Union privacy rules, especially around the training of its language model. Garante is one of the European Union's most proactive regulators in assessing AI-platform compliance with the bloc's data privacy rules. Last year, it fined ChatGPT maker OpenAI 15 million euros after briefly banning the use of the popular chatbot in Italy in 2023 over the alleged breach of EU privacy rules. ($1 = 0.8868 euros) (Reporting by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Cristina Carlevaro and Rachna Uppal)
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Italian payment app Satispay teams up with Amundi in money market fund service
By Elvira Pollina MILAN (Reuters) -Italy's Satispay said on Monday it would start offering its 5.5 million users a way to earn a return on their cash, in a move that heightens the mobile payment firm's competition with high street banks. Founded in 2013, Satispay provides a mobile app for payments in shops and for money exchanges between users. Satispay said it had joined forces with Europe's largest fund manager Amundi to allow users to put their savings into a money market fund. As of May 5, the estimated return net of costs but before taxes was of 2.24%, it said. "This is just the first step of a longer journey," Chief Executive Officer Alberto Dalmasso said in a statement. Available only in Italy for now, the investment service does not require a minimum size. The funds can be redeemed at a one-day notice. The digital payment app said it had introduced in 2018 the chance for users to put some money into digital wallets, without any remuneration. Since then about 1 million people have put aside some 250 million euros. Italians' risk aversion and their propensity to hold cash in their bank accounts rather than invest their savings have allowed banks in the country to reap record profits as interest rates shot up lifting the cost of lending, while deposit rates failed to take off. In March current accounts in Italy returned on average 0.38%with deposits overall, including savings accounts, yielding 0.79%, data by Italian banking association ABI showed. Deposits totalled 1.8 trillion euros. "We want to make more accessible tools that give more value to people's money so as to change a culture traditionally too focused on saving and too little on investing," Dalmasso said. Satispay has obtained authorisation to operate as a financial investment firm from Luxembourg's financial watchdog. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
