Pietro Labriola, the chief executive of Telecom Italia (TIM), expressed his confidence in the sale of Sparkle, the company that owns the submarine cables unit and TIM’s remaining interest in INWIT, the telecom towers firm.

TIM wants to earn around one billion euro ($1.1 billion), having sold its fixed-line domestic network for 18,8 billion euros to the U.S. Fund KKR, excluding future potential payments.

Labriola, an analyst on a call with analysts, said: "We're quite confident about the completion of both deals."

Sources previously stated that TIM was in negotiations with a consortium headed by the Italian Treasury for the sale of Sparkle after rejecting an earlier offer worth up to 725 millions euros from the Treasury.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation said that TIM was also interested in selling its remaining holdings in INWIT, and is currently discussing a possible deal with French funds Ardian.

TIM owns about 10% of a company that controls nearly 30% in INWIT, a Milan listed firm. French company Ardian controls already 90% of the vehicle.

The TIM share would be worth less than 300 millions euros at current market rates.

Labriola stated that TIM will not divide its domestic service operation into separate companies. Instead, it will continue to manage its consumer and business arms as divisions of the group.

TIM shares were up 2% at 1200 GMT, after TIM announced a core profit increase of 10% in the first six months for the remaining group after the sale.

TIM’s Brazil-listed company and its rapidly-growing enterprise division, which offers cloud-based connectivity and cloud-based services to large corporate clients, accounted for the bulk of TIM’s core earnings.

Labriola said that the main goal of TIM's domestic operations is to increase organically. However, he didn't rule out TIM playing a role in M&A in both the enterprise and consumer segment. Reporting by Elvira pollina, Editing by Keith Weir & Valentina Za

(source: Reuters)