And they're off!

Anyone looking for a bit of sector sentiment support from M&A activity in Europe this year hasn't had to wait long. An article in La Tribune this morning claims that Neuf Telecom is looking to take over Tiscali France's operations, which would add 386k DSL subs to its existing base, which was at 500k unbundled lines at the end of September. This report comes only one day after Tiscali announced the separation of its core Italian units from the holding company structure, which houses everything else. This presumably lends some credence to talk of consolidation in the Italian market.

UPDATE: Reuters later ran a story quoting Tiscali as saying it had no plans to exit France, and suggesting that, in publicly exploring its options in France, the company was trying to give comfort to creditors.