The US investment fund, which owns 37.5% of FiberCop, last year made a 10.8 billion euro ($12.2 billion) offer for Telecom Italia, but has yet to received an official response and is getting impatient, according to the Italian daily.
The fund does not intend to allow FiberCop to merge into any network company, the newspaper said, citing financial sources.
KKR and TIM declined to comment.
TIM’s new management team, which is in debt, is working on a new plan that could see moving the former phone monopoly’s network assets into a NetCo vehicle and separating it from its services business.
The overhaul would be an alternative to KKR’s proposed takeover and could pave the way for NetCo to merge with smaller rival Open Fiber to create a national champion in fast fiber networks, sources said.
The public creditor Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), which owns about 10% of TIM, controls 60% of Open Fiber, the rest being in the hands of the Australian investment fund Macquarie.
“This move would open up new scenarios (but) wouldn’t be so surprising given TIM’s reluctance to process the offer,” Italian broker Banca Akros said on Saturday.
($1 = 0.8833 euros)