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Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Milan (2021)
Photo: FLAVIO LO SCALZO / REUTERS
Silvio Berlusconi's media group has increased its stake in ProSiebenSat.1 to more than a quarter of the shares.
The Italian main shareholder MediaForEurope (MFE) – still known as Mediaset until autumn 2021 – announced that it had “directly and indirectly exceeded the threshold of 25 percent of the voting rights in ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE by buying shares on the market «.
The report did not come as a surprise: the group of the former Italian Prime Minister had recently announced that it was pursuing a long-term strategy and wanted more voting rights in ProSiebenSat.1.
Nevertheless, little is known in Unterföhring about the exact plans of the largest shareholder.
Despite contradictory announcements, it is considered possible that MFE could propose its own candidates for the supervisory board at the upcoming general meeting in May.
skepticism about mergers
With Andreas Wiele, who is already a member of the supervisory board due to a court appointment, an ex-Springer board member is to become the head of the supervisory board.
The second vacant post on the supervisory board is to be filled by the ex-boss of rival RTL, Bert Habets – provided the Berlusconi family doesn't thwart the Munich plans.
ProSiebenSat.1 boss Rainer Beaujean has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the pan-European plans in the past.
Cross-border mergers do not make much sense in Munich.
"I don't need Europe for what we're doing," Beaujean told SPIEGEL last year.
Berlusconi founded his media group in the late 1970s.
Last November, this became the holding company MediaforEurope, based in Amsterdam, which is headed by a decades-old confidant and business partner and Berlusconi's son.
In addition to ProSiebenSat.1, the group also owns 100 percent of Italy's Mediaset and Mediaset España with almost 56 percent.
rai/dpa
