By Nina Kienle and Adria Calatayud
Inwit shares fell sharply after telecommunications operators Swisscom and Telecom Italia said they are teaming up to form a tower joint venture with the aim of building thousands of sites in Italy.
Shares in Inwit, an Italian telecom-tower specialist, fell as much as 26% in early European trading on Thursday and erased gains in the year to date. Swisscom shares were down 0.5% and Telecom Italia down 2.9%, in a session marked by broad-based losses across European stocks due to the war in the Middle East.
Swisscom's Fastweb + Vodafone and TIM plan to launch a venture aimed at developing and operating up to 6,000 new mobile tower sites in Italy to expand 5G networks, the companies said Thursday. The project will be structured initially as a 50-50 joint venture, but the partners intend to add third-party investors in the future.
Inwit, formally known as Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The company was spun out of TIM in 2020 and counts the former Italian telecom monopoly, as well as Fastweb + Vodafone, among its customers.
Fastweb + Vodafone and TIM will be the anchor tenants of the joint venture, they said. TIM added that the infrastructure will be open to third-party customers.
Funding for the project will come from a combination of equity from third-party investors and debt, Swisscom said.
The collaboration aims to improve efficiency and align costs with the European average, TIM said.
A plan to improve Italy's 5G networks in a cost-efficient way looks positive for Swisscom and TIM, making them stronger competitors and potentially leading to higher revenue, analysts at ING wrote in a research note. Nevertheless, the project will increase lease costs for both somewhat, they added.
Write to Nina Kienle at nina.kienle@wsj.com and to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 05:19 ET (09:19 GMT)
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