Poste Italiane not promoting changes at the helm of Telecom Italia

By Elvira Pollina

MILAN (Reuters) -Poste Italiane has no short term plans to request changes at the helm of Telecom Italia (TIM) after becoming the main investor in the telecoms group, a regulatory filing showed.

Poste on May 23 finalised the purchase of an additional 15% of TIM from France's Vivendi , market regulator Consob said on Thursday. As a consequence, Vivendi's stake in TIM dropped to 2.5% from 19.3% previously, the filing showed.

State-controlled financial conglomerate Poste, whose businesses include energy, payments and phone services, as well as mail and parcels, first became an investor in TIM in February with an initial 9.8% stake, replacing state lender CDP. 

Poste at this stage does not plan to seek any changes to TIM's boards of directors and auditors, though it reserves the right to reassess the situation later, it said in the filing.

As part of the 684 million euro deal that handed Poste the additional stake, Vivendi has dropped a legal challenge against TIM, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Vivendi had challenged in court TIM's decision to sell its prized landline grid to a consortium led by U.S. investment fund KKR and including Italy's Treasury,

(Reporting by Elvira Pollina, editing by Alvise Armellini and Valentina Za)