Travers Smith has worked with independent Italian law firm Legance in advising Swisscom on the English law aspects of its proposed acquisition of Vodafone Italia for €8 billion on a debt and cash free basis, with the aim of merging it with Fastweb, Swisscom's subsidiary in Italy.

The transaction consideration will be 100% cash and will be fully debt-financed, and is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals with closing expected in Q1 2025.

Vodafone Italia and Fastweb will bring together complementary high-quality mobile and fixed infrastructures, competencies, and capabilities to create a leading converged challenger in a market with material growth opportunities. The transaction is a key step for Swisscom to achieve its strategic objective of profitable growth in Italy.

Our work on this transaction follows advising Zegona Communications plc on its €5 billion acquisition of Vodafone Spain in Q4 2023 in one of the largest EMEA TMT deals of the year.

Working alongside Filippo Troisi and his Legance team on this transaction, the Travers Smith team in advising Swisscom was led by our Senior Partner Andrew Gillen  and Senior Associate Fabian McNeilly, with support from Partner Richard Brown and Senior Counsels Michael Cuthbertson and Michael Ross in our Technology and Commercial Transactions (TCT) team.

Other advisors to Swisscom include Evercore Partners (lead financial advisor), Deutsche Bank (financial advisor), J.P. Morgan Securities (financial advisor and also provided a fairness opinion), Deutsche Bank AG, ING Wholesale Banking in Switzerland and UniCredit (lead underwriters of the debt financing), White & Case (regulatory counsel), Sullivan & Cromwell (financing counsel), and McDermott, Will & Emery Studio Legale Associato (tax counsel). PwC Switzerland and PwC Italy are acting as financial and accounting due diligence advisors to Swisscom.