MILAN - The financial consortium Weather Investments, which is seeking to acquire the telephone subsidiary of the Italian group Enel, said Monday it wanted to establish a telecommunications company serving the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and southeast Asia.
Enel has chosen Weather Investments, headed by Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris, to negotiate a deal under which Enel would sell it a 63 percent stake in the subsidiary Wind, a source close to the matter said.
Weather Investments values Wind at 12.2 billion euros (15.8 billion dollars), including more than 7.0 billion euros in debt.
"The development plan foresees Wind becoming the technological and commercial development heart of a group of operators targeting the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and southeast Asia," Weather Investments said.
The Sawiris family is the founder and principal shareholder in Orascom Telecom, a telecom operator active in Algeria, Bangladesh, Congo Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe.
Italian press reports have said that if acquired by Weather Investments, Wind could be brought closer to Orascom Telecom.
Wind is the principal rival to Telecom Italia on the Italian market and is the third largest mobile operator, after TIM and Vodafone, in numbers of clients.
Weather Investments has it would maintain Wind's headquarters in Rome as well its workforce there.
04/11/2005 14:48 GMT