Mediaset, there is no negotiation with Vivendi – LOOP.it

If the meeting between the to.d. of Mediaset, Pier Silvio Berlusconi and Vivendi, Arnaud De Puyfontaine, had to bury the axe of war, the earth must have been placed really low. At least judging by the words of Fedele Confalonieri, who stated: that of the French is “a hostile takeover”. Not only from the point of view of Cologno Monzese, but also to politics. “We feel supported because the Government is acting in a way very correct and also very decided.”

the brief meeting between the two managers could not resolve the problem it was obvious. But the first contact between the parties could be used as a ‘forerunner’ to a diplomatic action more extensive and in-depth. It was not so. On the contrary. The lack of confidentiality and the interview with Arnaud De Puyfontaine to the Courier of the Evening they irritated. The “serious statements,” he explained Cologno Monzese, “will find adequate replication”. And if the to.d. Vivendi had said they bought it and then treat it, in view of an industrial project with common, Mediaset has sent back the offering: “there is no negotiation”. Because in the meeting: “the company has reaffirmed its positions, taking into account that it is his duty to protect the interests of the company and all its shareholders, not only of the person who holds the 20% of the shares”. Mediaset remains: before you s peak, you must solve the issues, i.e. the Premium.

For De Puyfontaine, on pay-tv, Vivendi pulled back “because we discovered that it has signed an agreement different from what we had been told”. “The facts are that we had a contract and does not have respected, he suggested Confalonieri -. Now to say that that contract was wrong is absurd, wrong about what? They have done their due diligence then they had to realize if there were things that did not go”. Now say “we were cheated” is, in short, seen as a pretext.

Then in Cologno Monzese continue the study of defensive strategies, in the fear that the rounding-up of shares of Mediaset to be just the appetizer of a further hostile act. Also, because of the response of De Puyfontaine to the accusation of the point to control in a subtle manner, the taste not reassuring: “we launched a tender offer, and we have the means to do so.” So if the action of Agcom and the words of the minister Calenda do mean to Suggest that it was understood that in game there is not only Italian, but “the national interest”, on the other hand, it is obvious that in the coming days much will depend from the results that will give the cards brought by the lawyers of Alfa to the Consob and the Prosecutor’s office, where it opened an investigation for market manipulation. On the horizon there is always the hypothesis of precautionary confiscation of the shares of Mediaset in the hand of Vivendi. But are the hypotheses of the war, certainly not a good viaticum to the birth of the great media-company in the South of Europe the objective of the group’s French, and that Cologno did not dislike.

In the impasse, then, may intervene in the human factor. Because behind Mediaset Vivendi, there are still Silvio Berlusconi and Vincent Bollorè. Many see as a possible mediator of a meeting that Tarak Ben Ammar, who is now silent, uncomfortable in the conflict between the two friends, but that only twenty days ago, interviewed on the matter said, “if there is war, I don’t do any part of it. If there is peace, I am a man of dialogue, I’ll do everything”.