Iliad, an Italian telecommunications company, offered to merge with Italian operations of Vodafone, a British multinational telecommunications company, in a €10.45bn deal. "The market context in Italy calls for the creation of the most innovative telecom challenger, with ability to compete and create value in a competitive environment. We believe that the profiles and complementary expertise of iliad and Vodafone in Italy would allow us to build a strong operator with the ability and financial strength to invest for the long term. NewCo would be fully committed to accelerating the country’s digital transformation and especially fiber adoption and 5G deployment, with more than €4bn of investment planned over the next 5 years," Thomas Reynaud, iliad Group CEO.