Pier Silvio Berlusconi tow Urbano Cairo on Mediaset?
Mediaset in the crosshairs after the death of Silvio Berlusconi? The position of Pier Silvio Berlusconi, the aims of Vivendi and the ambitions of Cairo (RCS and La7). Facts, analyzes and scenarios.
“We are and will always be a proof of freedom”. It is one of the key phrases pronounced by Pier Silvio Berlusconi, CEO of Mfe-Mediaset, to greet Mediaset employees
“All the people who loved him felt touched in some way by his generosity and greatness, but guys from tonight, from tomorrow, we'll click and go back to being a lively company, full of energy and strength, like it has been his whole life,” said Pier Silvio Berlusconi, CEO of Mfe-Mediaset, as he greeted the employees who waited for him in Studio 20 in Cologno Monzese, after Silvio Berlusconi's funeral, to surprise him. “Dad – added Pier Silvio – was proud of our company, thank you. It's as if he loved you one by one. Starting tomorrow we'll go back to being who we've always been. He will always, always, always remain in our hearts. We will continue to do our job." Finally, the most important word: "We are and will always be a proof of freedom".
Words that among many Milanese insiders mean above all that Mediaset will remain in the Berlusconi family. It will be like this? And why did Silvio Berlusconi's eldest son also let this message appear?
Today the newspapers of the Gedi group return to the post Cav scenarios for the Mediaset group, between the aims of Vivendi ( here the in-depth analysis from Start Magazine ) and the ambitions of Cairo ( here the in-depth analysis from Start Magazine) .
“In the middle is the editor of Corriere della Sera and La7, that Urbano Cairo who took his first steps right at the court of King Silvio. The rumors have been circulating for weeks, launched by the Dagospia website and fed by many whispers from Milan and beyond – wrote the newspaper La Stampa – In essence, it is argued, Cairo wants Mediaset together with a consortium of entrepreneurs. In one fell swoop he would defend the Italian character of the Cologno tower, allow the French to leave the capital (and perhaps this would also help unravel Tim's skein) and close the circle of a brilliant entrepreneurial career. However, there would be regulatory obstacles. This is why there are those who whisper that, in order to have Alfa channels, they would be ready to sell La7. But to whom? To Discovery, which – after having knocked in turn on Cologno, receiving a "no, thank you" – could thus expand into the Italian ether. Cairo denies everything, even yesterday in Class CNBC he defined the scenario «a totally imaginative thing, there has never even been a meeting on the subject. We are talking about fictional television». Yet he plays a bit too. At the recent TV festival in Dogliani, they heard him ask a well-known TV presenter: "But would you see yourself better on Canale 5 or Rete 4?". Suggestions? Possible. Also because, at least at the moment, a rather necessary element is missing to close any deal: the seller”.
In recent days, Cairo – as Start Magazine remarked yesterday – has attempted to gain credit with the family and politics as a necessary crutch in this delicate moment of generational transition. But it is in particular – in the Berlusconi family – the eldest son to oppose the aims of the publisher of RCS and La7. The Repubblica newspaper writes today: "The narrative circulated in Roman circles refers to a Cairo that promotes an RCS-Mediaset marriage thanks to a hypothetical agreement between Marina Berlusconi and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, aimed at making the editorial-television hub that a point of reference for the center-right government would be born. With the icing on the cake of the sale of La7 to the Discovery group to avoid the regulatory stakes of the AgCom and to detach itself from the political area of the left. But this perspective, according to reliable sources, is not taking root either in the Berlusconi family or in Meloni's closest entourage. Indeed, the Cairo hypothesis would have been greeted with astonishment by Pier Silvio who, having ascertained the values in the field (Mfe capitalizes 1.75 billion on the Stock Exchange while Rcs only 376 million) would have joked to his collaborators that at most Mfe would be being able to buy Rcs and not vice versa. And the messages launched by Cairo on TV yesterday also seem to be of little use, when he revealed on Tg1 that in January he met Silvio Berlusconi for dinner three times, perhaps in the search for an investiture in the succession. Just as the hypotheses of a new approach by the French group Vivendi to Mfe seem equally out of place, after five years of legal battles and one of truce. The French still have 23% of the Mfe capital in their portfolio but have undertaken to sell it in the presence of certain prices. This hasn't happened yet but it could happen in the coming months and in any case Vivendi's top management in Italy is not well regarded by the Meloni government due to the stalemate in the Tim match, where they obstruct the sale of the network to the state. Yesterday there was further proof of these frictions with the failure to appoint the man indicated by Vivendi, Luciano Carta, to Tim's board of directors, who had to give way to Alessandro Pansa proposed by the CDP and endorsed by the board. So the most probable hypothesis, at the moment, is that once the contents of Silvio Berlusconi's will are known, and in the absence of upheavals in the ownership structure of Fininvest, Pier Silvio will continue with his European strategy, looking for a thrust on the German investee. Counting on the fact that now he will no longer have a political brand on his shoulders, like when his father was alive, an element that had stiffened the Teutonic institutions. And in the awareness that her sister Marina will not get involved in politics”.
But it is not only Cairo that potentially targets Mediaset, but a current shareholder of the group founded by Berlusconi, namely the French Vivendi. Il Corriere della Sera wrote: “The name of Vivendi recurs among the insiders and in the research of analysts who already in 2016 had attempted a hostile takeover of Mediaset. A long legal war had ensued, concluded in May 2021 by an agreement with Fininvest. The agreement includes Vivendi's commitment to progressively sell 19.2% of Mfe and then completely exit from the share capital within five years. The pact has one condition: that the shares reach a price threshold, which varies between 1.375 and 1.55 euros. Today, A shares are worth around 57 cents, B shares less than 76. Selling these quotations would entail a large loss for Vivendi which has entered the shares of the former Mediaset at 1.85 euros in the balance sheet. Result: two years after the signing of the peace, the transalpines are firmly the second shareholder of Mfe with 23.6% of the voting rights".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/primo-piano/pier-silvio-berlusconi-stoppa-urbano-cairo-su-mediaset/ on Thu, 15 Jun 2023 08:22:28 +0000.