CK HUTCHISON’s Italian telecommunications unit is the target of a probe alleging that it evaded taxes during a 3.4 billion euros (S$4.8 billion) asset sale to Cellnex Telecom.
The investigation by Italy’s finance police hinges on whether Wind Tre, the country’s third-biggest phone company, failed to pay registration taxes while selling several thousand mobile phone masts to Barcelona-based Cellnex, according to a document seen by Bloomberg.
The alleged evaded taxes would amount to about 132 million euros for 2022, the document shows.
Wind Tre executives allegedly used a complex asset-sale system that relied on a Luxembourg-based vehicle called CK Hutchison Europe Investments Sarl, with the goal of reducing the firm’s Italian tax burden.
The tower sale deal then made use of “an undue optimisation of the overall tax burden in terms of registration and income tax”, the finance police said in the document.
The investigation began last year and a notification of the full audit report was submitted to Wind Tre in October, according to the document.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
“Wind Tre implemented the transaction in full compliance with applicable tax laws,” the company said in a statement to Bloomberg, adding that it’s cooperating with the tax authorities with regard to their ongoing investigation.
Representatives for CK Hutchison did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Italy’s finance police declined to comment. A representative for Cellnex declined to comment.
Tax scrutiny
Italy has been ramping up scrutiny of global companies’ taxes. Prosecutors in 2019 launched a probe into Netflix that was settled in 2022 with the streaming company paying about 56 million eruos in back taxes.
A Milan prosecutor earlier this month said that Meta Platforms failed to pay value-added tax worth up to 887.6 million euros between 2015 and 2021, and did not declare a potential 3.99 billion euros in taxable revenue over that period. Meta has denied any wrongdoing.
Wind Tre’s Italian mobile tower sale was part of a broader deal between CK Hutchison and Cellnex, Europe’s largest independent tower operator. That larger transaction involved all of the Hong-Kong based conglomerate’s European telecom masts, valued at 10 billion euros.
Cellnex agreed to the deal in November 2020, adding around 24,600 new towers to its existing 60,000 sites.
The company shifted its strategy from 2022 to focus on reducing leverage amid rising financing costs, after years of growth fuelled by takeovers. BLOOMBERG
