Italy's state-controlled postal service, Poste Italiane, has submitted a €10.8 billion ($12.53bn) cash and stock bid for Telecom Italia (TIM).

The offer was launched yesterday (March 22) and aims to combine two of Italy's largest industrial companies.

Poste said it's offering €0.167 ($0.19) in cash plus €0.0218 ($0.0025) of newly issued stock in Poste Italiane for each Telecom Italia share. 

The company is already the largest shareholder in Telecom Italia, owning a stake of around 27 percent in the telco.

TIM is Italy's third-largest telecoms operator behind Fastweb+Vodafone and WindTre.

"The integration with TIM represents a natural evolution of the company's 'platform company' business model, based on the largest physical and digital network in Italy, through the convergence of networks, cloud, Edge computing, data, and digital identity," said Poste (translated).

The Financial Times reports that members of the TIM board will review the offer during a meeting today (March 23).

TIM previously sold its fixed network spin-off NetCo to investment firm KKR in a deal worth €22bn ($25.6bn) back in 2024. That sale covered Telecom Italia's landline grid network.

Poste acquired a nine percent stake in the company in 2025 from Italy’s state-backed investor Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, before increasing its shareholding through two stock purchases from French conglomerate Vivendi. Vivendi was previously TIM's largest shareholder, however, the company publicly disagreed with the sale of NetCo.