5 years ago… Olivetti finally secures Telecom Italia takeover

24.05.99 Olivetti's €60.4bn hostile bid for Telecom Italia ended in success on Friday as it secured the 50 per cent stake it needed to claim ownership of the Italian telecoms giant.

The move spells the end for the proposed merger between Telecom Italia and German operator Deutsche Telekom (DT).

Friday was the last day for Telecom Italia shareholders to tender their support for Olivetti's bid, and at 8:00pm news came through that 51.02 per cent of shares had been acquired by the Italian technology company.

Giulia Rancati, research manager for analyst company IDC, said the takeover was allowed to go through because the Italian government was keen to keep the ex-national telephone operator in Italian hands.

Full story here.

24.05.04 The past five years have seen some dramatic takeover attempts in tech and telecoms. As well as this one, HP's struggle for Compaq and Vodafone's bid for Mannesmann come to mind.

Indeed, on this same day half a decade back, we carried a story about Vodafone's bid for AirTouch of the US having to clear one of several hurdles.

Often such bids were subject to national concerns on the part of regulators. Nearly always the egos of empire builders played a part.

Looking back, it's questionable whether so much time, money and effort was spent wisely in such big deals.