Weather Investments, a private equity consortium bidding for Wind, the telecoms arm of Italian utility Enel, is preparing to fund its bid with about €8bn ($10.3bn) of debt and €1bn of equity, according to sources close to the deal.

Typically, a private equity bid for a leveraged buy-out has a two-thirds debt to equity ratio, up to 70:30 in large deals, but for the Weather proposal it would be nearer 90:10, the source said.