MILAN (Reuters) - INWIT, the mast group controlled by Telecom Italia, said on Monday it would pay a special dividend of 0.5936 euros (£0.5072) per share once a merger of its assets with the Italian mobile towers of Vodafone is completed.

Telecom Italia (TIM) and Vodafone agreed earlier this year to merge their mobile tower infrastructures and to jointly roll out 5G in Italy.

In a statement on Monday INWIT said its board had approved the merger plan and had set a date of December 19 for a shareholder meeting to sign off on the deal.

It said the special dividend would total 570 million euros ($631 million).

A precondition for the merger is obtaining authorisation from the European Commission before a long--stop date of 31 October 2020, the company said.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes, editing by Andrea Mandala)