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Vodafone Group PLC (VOD), France's AXA Private Equity and Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI) are among the bidders for Italian fiber-optic network operator Metroweb, people familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.

Four binding offers have been submitted in the past few days, valuing Metroweb at around EUR450 million, one of the people said.

"The four offers are now being evaluated and the next step is likely to be the choice of a couple of front runners. But there's no set timeline yet," the person said.

The four bids were submitted by French infrastructure fund Antin Infrastructure Partners; AXA Private Equity; an Italian consortium formed by bank Intesa Sanpaolo and infrastructure fund F2i, and another consortium including Vodafone, telecoms operator Wind SpA and Italian private-equity firm Clessidra.

Metroweb--which is currently owned by private equity firm Stirling Square Capital Partners and Italian utility A2A SpA (A2A.MI)--wasn't available for a comment. The company owns the largest fiber-optic networks in Milan and Lombardy, the most widespread metropolitan network in Europe.

It manages a fiber-optic network in the Milan metropolitan area that consists in 2,255 kilometers of infrastructures and 5,100 kilometers of cables, corresponding to approximately 263,000 kilometers of fiber optics. In addition, it also controls approximately another 1,000 kilometers of long distance cables.

Metroweb's sale comes as Italy debates the best way to develop broadband infrastructure in the country and create a fiber-optic national network able to deliver high-speed services to clients.

-By Giada Zampano and Marietta Cauchi, Dow Jones Newswires; +39 06 69766925; giada.zampano@dowjones.com

(Lilly Vitorovich in London contributed to the report.)

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