Poste Italiane now controls just under 86% of Telecom Italia's share capital after completing the second and final phase of a public tender offer valued at roughly €13 billion, but the postal operator fell short of the 90% threshold required to take the operator private.

The company confirmed the results of the tender's closing phase, in which it bought an additional 65.7% of the operator. That builds on a 20% stake acquired last year, when Poste Italiane replaced French media group Vivendi as Telecom Italia's main shareholder.

The tender opened in July with a cash offer of €1.67 per share. In March, Poste Italiane laid out its plan to take the operator private as part of a wider strategy to revamp Telecom Italia and build an infrastructure and services group spanning postal operations, financial services and insurance alongside telecoms.

Missing the 90% mark changes the arithmetic. Reuters reported that Poste Italiane will need to pursue other avenues if it wants to complete the delisting and stick to its original strategy. The company has not detailed what those alternatives might involve.

What the combination is meant to deliver

When it launched the bid, Poste Italiane framed the deal in terms of financial rather than technological outcomes. The combination of its assets with Telecom Italia, it said, "offers a diversified, resilient, cash generating mix of businesses with strong financial solidity and significant distributable capital reserves".

It also described the pairing as a "perfect integration, creating a unique and complete offering supported by an unmatched distribution network" — language that reflects the marketing case for a conglomerate spanning mail, banking, insurance and connectivity rather than any specific network commitment.

The logic rests on distribution. Poste Italiane operates one of Italy's largest retail footprints and sells financial and insurance products through it. Folding a national telecom operator into that structure would, in the company's telling, create cross-selling opportunities across banking, insurance and connectivity that neither business could reach alone.

A shareholder shift completed in two stages

The takeover unfolded in two steps. The first came last year, when Poste Italiane acquired 20% of Telecom Italia and displaced Vivendi as the operator's principal shareholder — a turning point for a company that spent years under pressure from the French group over strategy and governance.

The second stage was the public tender that went live in July after board backing, offering remaining shareholders €1.67 per share in cash. The offer valued the whole deal at around €13 billion.

The result leaves Poste Italiane just above 85% but below the level Italian rules set for a squeeze-out and delisting. That gap between 86% and 90% now defines the next phase: the company must find another route to full control, whether through further purchases from residual shareholders or other mechanisms, if it intends to complete the privatisation it set out in March.