By Elvira Pollina
MILAN (Reuters) – Italian broadcaster Mediaset and its second-largest investor Vivendi are expected to sign an agreement as soon as Monday to end years of legal sparring, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The accord may pave the way for Vivendi to gradually cut its holding in the group controlled by the family of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, allowing Mediaset to pursue a pan-European expansion strategy Vivendi has so far managed to thwart.
The two media companies have been at loggerheads since 2016, when Vivendi walked away from a pay-TV deal and then built a 29% stake in Mediaset, which the Milanese group considers hostile.
The three people said the parties were finalising the details of an accord which was likely to be signed in the coming hours, barring any surprises.
Lawyers for the two sides have been at work through the weekend on the fine print of a possible deal, sources familiar with the negotiations had previously said.
The Italian broadcaster and Vivendi have come close in the past to settling their multiple legal disputes, without being able to strike an accord.
The latest push comes after a Milan court last month dismissed a 3 billion euro ($3.6 billion) damage request from Mediaset and ordered Vivendi to pay only around 1.7 million euros.
The ruling was the latest court victory for Vivendi, which has managed to regain full voting rights on its Mediaset stake and is in a position to block major shareholder decisions.
The group controlled by French billionaire Vincent Bollore has spent 1.26 billion euros for the holding, which is now worth around 914 million euros.
Shares in Mediaset, whose market value is less than a tenth compared with Vivendi’s nearly 32 billion euros, hit a 17-month high last week boosted by the prospect of a deal.
A settlement to end pending lawsuits would leave Mediaset free to pursue a revamped plan to move its legal base to the Netherlands and seek tie-ups with European rivals, to fend off competition from streaming services such as Netflix.
Mediaset last week said it wanted to improve relations with all of its shareholders as it revived the project.
($1 = 0.8295 euros)
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina, writing by Valentina Za; editing by David Evans)
