Telecom Italia once tried to buy Apple, now It is in trouble. Here’s why
[ad_1]
It's not a misprint. Telecom Italia SpA, Italy's beleaguered former telephone monopoly, once pitched a plan to buy Apple Inc.
About 25 years ago a group of executives from the carrier flew to California to meet Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, with an audacious plan to buy the tech company at a time it was struggling to make headway against rivals like International Business Machines Corp.
Telecom Italia, on the other hand, was flying high, ranking as the world's sixth-largest telephone company by sales. Worth about €90 billion ($100 billion), it had minimal debt, held stakes in dozens of tech groups around the world and employed more that 120,000 people.
Although Apple's rise back from the ashes is well documented, the fate of its would-be buyer is less well known outside Italy. ...