The sighs of relief echoed all round Ivrea late on Monday after Italy’s outgoing government moved forward announcement of its award of the country’s first commercial cellular licence and gave it to the Omnitel-Pronto Italia consortium, in which Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA is the lead investor and now holds a 35.5% stake. Olivetti’s shares have been banking on the company getting the franchise for months now, but they still put on 7.5% on the announcement. Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party looks to be the biggest winner in the Iralian general election, is a leading light in the losing Unitel consortium. The winning Omnitel consortium also includes Bell Atlantic Corp, 11.6%, AirTouch Communications Inc, 10.2%, Cellular Communications International Inc, 10.3%, Telia AB, 6.8%, Lehman Brothers, 5.6%, and Mannesmann AG, 4.5%. State telephone operator Sip SpA currently has a monopoly of cellular service – its analogue system has won 1.2m subscribers.Omnitel offered to pay an upfront fee of $441m for the licence against $416m offered by Unitel. Analysts say that the licence could be worth $2,800m to the winner over time.
