(Bloomberg) -- Royal KPN NV Chief Executive Officer Maximo Ibarra is leaving the Dutch phone company to pursue a job running Comcast Corp.’s Italian pay-television unit, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ibarra is in advanced talks with the U.S. media giant to join Sky Italia as CEO, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. No firm agreement has yet been reached and the CEO of Italian utility A2A SpA, Valerio Camerano, remains a candidate for the position, two of the people said.

KPN said Tuesday that Ibarra will step down effective Sept. 30 “for pressing family reasons” and will move back to Italy to take up a new executive position.

Ibarra has been in charge of KPN for just over a year. The former monopoly’s first foreign CEO, the Colombian-Italian executive had ambitions to put the company back on the acquisition trail after years of retrenchment, people familiar with the matter said ahead of his arrival. The seasoned 50-year-old dealmaker had overseen one of Europe’s biggest phone industry tie-ups -- the combination in 2016 of VimpelCom Ltd.’s Italian wireless network with the local unit of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.

A spokesman for Comcast, which bought Sky last year, referred questions to a Sky representative in London, who declined to comment. Ibarra and Camerano couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.

A big KPN deal hasn’t happened for now and the company remains heavily reliant on the Netherlands, where a tough competitive landscape has led to mergers among its rivals. It remains a relative minnow among continental Europe’s incumbent carriers.

“The supervisory board regrets but respects Maximo’s decision and accepts his resignation,” Duco Sickinghe, chairman of the supervisory board, said in the company’s statement. A successor has yet to be identified, KPN said.

Ibarra has focused on cutting jobs and simplifying the company’s IT systems. KPN shares reached their highest closing price since he took charge on June 12, boosted by an improving results outlook.

Broadband Push

His telecommunications experience could help Comcast’s Italian business as it prepares to offer high-speed broadband connections alongside its pay-TV subscriptions under a deal with Italian fixed-line network operator Open Fiber SpA. Sky operates mainly as a satellite broadcaster in Italy and is under growing competitive pressure from Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video service.

KPN stock surged in late January after people familiar with the matter said Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. was in early-stage talks to make an offer for company. The fate of those talks is unclear and the Dutch government has since moved to tighten its control over foreign takeovers of local companies.

(Updates with details from KPN statement from seventh paragraph.)

--With assistance from Sonia Sirletti.

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniele Lepido in Milan at dlepido1@bloomberg.net;Ellen Proper in Amsterdam at eproper@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rebecca Penty at rpenty@bloomberg.net, Frank Connelly

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