the MILAN does Not stop the fight in rounds of actions between Mediaset and Vivendi. After a week of purchases on the Stock exchange, the protagonists go through to the words. “This is a hostile takeover, not only from our point of view, but also from the point of view of the policy. And under this point of view has made us much pleasure to feel supported by the institutions, because it is understood that there is substance, there is in the game only the Italian style and the Italian National anthem, but also the national interest”, said the president of Mediaset, Fedele Confalonieri, at a meeting of the Confindustria Piacenza, regarding the rounding-up of shares by Viv endi.
In the opinion of Confalonieri, “then when you do a hostile takeover, having bought the 20%, after that you lowered the title, because in the end the title was lowered from four euro to less than two-and-a-half, and you’ve raked up. Well, all this is now rightly in the hands of the judiciary, control bodies that will do their duty.” However, he added, “in commenting on these things you need to be very cautious because they are, to put it in English, price-sensitive, the risk of making a mess with the bag if you say the wrong things. I read I an interview with the ‘Corriere della Sera’, the facts are that we had a contract and could not have respected. 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 were not. Then he concluded, ” the excuse to say ‘we were cheated’, or to say something that very much resembles, is a pretext really come from thin air”.
In the interview of Arnaud de Puyfontaine, chief executive of Vivendi, which launched the accusations. “Fininvest and Mediaset have made us the cause for having broken the agreement on the Premium. But we pulled back because we discovered that it has signed an agreement different from what we had been told. We tried to find an alternative arrangement. Instead we have offended and abused publicly. We are not masochists. We have reacted to overcome the impasse”.
“The 20% makes us the second member with a voice in the chapter to find a good result on Premium – continues the manager – The ultimate goal is to arrive at a’ covenant to create a media company of european dimensions in the world, with an approach to Latin and content of great quality, able to compete with giants like Amazon Prime and Netflix. We have an interest in the long term, we want to be industrial partners. It is a project that we believe in very much.”
As for the possibility that Vivendi will launch a public tender offer, the ceo responds “I Cannot comment” and the amount of money spent for the 20% of Mediaset said: “we will let you know soon officially to the authorities, it is about 800 million euros”. In reference to the meetings of yesterday on the matter Mediaset de Puyfontaine says she has seen the minister of Development Carlo Calenda, in which “I expressed our strategic vision”, and Pier Silvio Berlusconi.
In the afternoon came, however, the official note of Mediaset, which “wishes to underline that there is not an appointment,” and attacks the Ceo of Vivendi: “The serious allegations of Arnaud De Puyfontaine will find adequate replication in locations more appropriate. In the meeting yesterday, requested by Vivendi, 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”. Among the “serious allegations” deemed detrimental to the good name of the company there would also be the definition of a given Premium, the pay tv del Biscione: “it is as if we were invited to dinner at a three-star restaurant and then we met again in a Mcdonald’s”.
At the time, after the descent in the field of the government and the Nra, Fininvest, he is silent, and on the front operating not going to waste resources on operations noise, however, very expensive, but of reinforcing the control of the group television. The hypothesis is that the acquisition of treasury shares on the part of Mediaset, which already has a mandate from the general assembly, but the problem is legal, as the operation may be considered as a ‘concert’ with the 5% already purchased in the year by Fininvest, and then trigger the obligation of the Opa, which does not want any.
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