Mediaset says has no interest in three-way shareholding partnership with Vivendi and Telecom Italia (translated)
Pier Silvio Berlusconi, the CEO of Mediaset [BIT:MS], has ruled out a shareholding partnership involving Vivendi [EPA:VIV] and Telecom Italia [BIT:TIT], Italian-language daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported.
The report cited Berlusconi as saying that Vivendi CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine made the offer at a meeting just before Christmas 2016 but that it was turned down as Mediaset had no intention of taking its focus away from broadcasting.
The report also cited Berlusconi as saying that Mediaset would continue to pursue Vivendi through the courts for damages involving its pulling out of a deal to buy Mediaset Premium and its subsequent building up of a stake of just under 30% in Mediaset. Berlusconi said that the amount of damage suffered by Mediaset and Fininvest, the holding of the Berlusconi family that controls Mediaset, gave it no alternative.
Mediaset has a market cap of EUR 5.02bn