Telecom Italia is looking at reorganising its Internet assets, it said on Tuesday, days after Internet service provider Tiscali said it could sell its French Internet arm to the telecoms group. Telecom Italia already owns tin. it, the Internet unit of its TI Media subsidiary. A source close to the situation said Telecom Italia's board would meet on April 4 to discuss spinning it out of the rest of TI Media.
Tiscali, which is trying to raise funds to repay a bond, said on Thursday that it was in talks to sell its French unit Liberty Surf to Telecom Italia, and sources close to the situation said a deal could be announced "within days".
Tiscali's board is due to meet on Tuesday to discuss strategy, much of which will depend on the successful sale of Liberty Surf.
In the past days, media has reported that Telecom Italia could delist TI Media, which owns La7 - one of Italy's few nationwide television channels that does not belong to the state or Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's family.
But a source said on Wednesday that a buyout was not on the agenda for the Telecom Italia board meeting.
Telecom Italia's statement made no mention of a possible delisting of TI Media and said the company would "abstain from commenting on any further speculation in the press".
TI Media's shares jumped more than 5 percent on the reports of a delisting but then calmed back down to 0.4125 euros, up 2.1 percent. Telecom Italia was down 0.1 percent at 2.905 euros.