Vivendi warns Mediaset of “other plans”
Vivendi’s chief executive has said his group’s ambitions to become a media and content power house in southern Europe do not depend on its planned alliance with Italy’s Mediaset.
Arnaud de Puyfontaine’s stark assessment comes as Vivendi tries to renegotiate an April agreement to buy Mediaset Premium, the Italian company’s pay-TV unit, as part of a wider deal in which the two media groups would take a 3.5 per cent stake in each other.
This tie up was hailed as an important complement to Vivendi’s 24.9 per cent stake in Telecom Italia, enabling the Paris-based company to expand its base in the region and take on the likes of Sky.
But the plans ran into trouble after Vivendi took issue with Mediaset’s growth projections for the pay-TV unit, claiming they were “unachievable”. An ensuing dispute now pits French billionaire and Vivendi chairman Vincent Bolloré in a struggle for supremacy with Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister and Mediaset’s founder.
In an interview with the FT, Mr de Puyfontaine said that while he still hoped a deal with the Italian broadcaster was possible, Vivendi had other ways to seek growth in the region.
“We started this journey with other plans,” he said. “If it does not happen, we will make the journey with other plans. We have different options.”
Last week, as the relationship between the two sides deteriorated, Vivendi threatened to sue Mediaset for defamation after the Italian group claimed to be surprised by an alternative offer from the French company.
Mediaset said in a statement on Tuesday that an alternative offer from Vivendi to acquire just 20 per cent of Mediaset Premium plus a 15 per cent stake in Mediaset was a surprise and had come “absolutely out of the blue”.
But Mr de Puyfontaine told the FT that Vivendi had first raised its concerns in a letter sent to Mediaset on May 12. He said that his company had since communicated, through meetings and phone calls, numerous times with Mediaset. “When we see Mediaset saying that it came out of the blue, that is factually wrong,” said Mr de Puyfontaine. “There are a whole range of assertions that are just wrong and we can’t accept that.”
Stressing that he still wanted to do a deal with the Italian broadcaster, Mr de Puyfontaine added: “As the saying goes, we hope for the best and plan for the worst.”
Mediaset rejected Vivendi’s alternative offer last week, fearing the 15 per cent stake proposal might be the start of a creeping control that many associate with Mr Bollore’s business style.
However, Mr de Puyfontaine dismissed any notion that Vivendi wanted ultimately to take control of Mediaset. “We firmly state that the intention is not to take control,” he said of Vivendi’s alternative proposal. “If we had wanted to do that, it would have been much easier to go in the market and build a stake.”
He stressed that he still believed in the merits of an alliance with the Italian broadcaster but said Mediaset’s projections for its lossmaking pay-TV unit were over optimistic. “If you tell me that you are selling me a Ferrari but it turns out to be a Fiat Punto, there is a problem,” he said. “Mediaset Premium is a problem in terms of its business plan.”