New power for private-equity firms

It is an evidence that private-equity companies are more and more often interfering in the telecom market. Remember that two well-known European telcos (i.e. TDC in Denmark and Greece telco), as well as more recently Freescale Semiconductor have passed in the hands of equity firms. Unknown companies (in the telecom arena) such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Blackstone, Texas Pacific Group, and many others have emerged and were able to raise billions of dollars. Their position is comforted by attractive rates they can offer (far ahead of current low interest rates), levels of raised funds and new financial products that allow pooling hundreds of loans and distributing the risk. In a pure financial, short-term perspective, is there a limit to their hunt? We are effectively far from traditional business strategies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia-Siemens or ATT-Bellsouth. The unavoidable result is to increase prices. Telecom Italia is expected to sell its TIM unit for about $50bn. Can an industry survive with short-term views?