Bluebell Proposes Ex-Google Executive for Telecom Italia CEO

Daniele Lepido, Bloomberg News

The Telecom Italia SpA logo in the window of a store in Rome. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners proposed an alternative business plan for troubled Telecom Italia SpA that calls for a new chief executive officer and board of directors at the phone carrier.

Bluebell put forward Laurence Lafont, the outgoing vice president for strategic industries at Alphabet Inc.’s Google in Europe, as a candidate for CEO at the company’s annual meeting on April 23, according to a document seen by Bloomberg.

Representatives for Bluebell declined to comment on the proposal.

Activist shareholders have challenged heavily indebted Telecom Italia’s current CEO Pietro Labriola as he seeks to close the sale of the former phone monopoly’s landline network to US private equity firm KKR & Co. for about €19 billion, in what would be one of Europe’s biggest infrastructure deals.

Read More: Telecom Italia CEO Sees Up to €5 Billion Upside After Grid Sale

Shares in Telecom Italia have fallen 21% so far this year as some investors have voiced concerns over the plan to sell the company’s most valuable asset and its higher-than-expected debt forecast for this year.

“Everyone is forgetting we have on the table €5 billion of upside,” Labriola said on Bloomberg TV Thursday, citing potential additional proceeds from the KKR deal, a recent court victory and the sale of some other assets. The KKR deal is going ahead as planned, he said.

The CEO has been the driving force behind the sale of Telecom Italia’s grid, which has the backing of the Italian government. Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said earlier this week that the plan is the “only realistic one.”

Bluebell co-founders Giuseppe Bivona and Marco Taricco have led high-profile campaigns against companies including Danone and Bayer AG.

The firm believes that the strategic decision to sell the Telecom Italia network was flawed at inception and wants its board candidates to review the status of the transaction, according to the document.

Bluebell said it is against the company’s breakup and that the sale of Telecom Italia’s Brazil unit “should not be a priority.”

Merlyn Partners, another minority shareholder, in March presented a plan for the carrier to sell the Brazilian business this year and proposed its own list of candidates for the board.

(Updates with shares, CEO role starting in fifth paragraph.)