European Commission Approves CK Hutchison-VimpelCom JV In Italy

(RTTNews) - CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd., parent company of 3 Italia S.p.A. and VimpelCom Ltd., parent company of Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A., welcomed the European Commission's decision to approve the 50/50 joint venture that will create the leading mobile operator in Italy. The combined business of 3 Italia and WIND will have over 31 million mobile customers and 2.8 million fixed line customers.

The combined business is expected to generate significant capex and opex benefits with a net present value, less integration costs, in excess of 5 billion euros. The combined business will benefit from scale and synergies which will unlock 7 billion euros of investment in Italy's digital infrastructure. The joint revenue in fiscal 2015 was 6.25 billion euros. It is expected that the transaction will complete in fourth quarter of 2016.

CK Hutchison is a multi-national conglomerate headquartered in Hong Kong and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Limited with 270,000 employees in over 50 countries. The telecommunications division includes mobile and fixed line operations in Hong Kong and Macau, mobile operations in Indonesia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, and in Europe, mobile operations in Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom.