background
The entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi leaves behind a large corporation that, in addition to TV stations, includes a bank, a football club and real estate businesses. Who will have power in his family holding Fininvest in the future?
“Grazie Silvio – Ciao papà”. The farewell message for the company founder ran white on blue all day long, visible from afar, on the digital tape of the transmission tower in Cologno Monzese, the traditional headquarters of the television station Silvio Berlusconi and his family.
In the most important Berlusconi TV programs, the current programs were canceled on the day of death, special transmissions ran until late at night – for the first time in the history of Berlusconi television without commercial breaks.
“Line of Absolute Continuity”
The TV business has always been at the heart of Silvio Berlusconi’s economic empire. After the death of the company founder, however, Italy’s leading business newspaper “Il Sole 24 Ore” saw an “empire” that had to face “many challenges”.
In order to contain fears, the five children of Berlusconi assured the markets on the anniversary of their father’s death: “The activities will continue in a line of absolute continuity.”
Piersilvio Berlusconi runs the TV business – and shows no ambitions in politics.
The future of the family’s television business is particularly exciting, always a “cash cow” in the company network and decisively involved in the political rise of Silvio Berlusconi. The company, which has a virtual monopoly on Italy’s commercial television, is run by the eldest son, Piersilvio Berlusconi. The 54-year-old has been CEO of the Mediaset Group since 2015, which was renamed Media for Europe (MFE) almost a year ago – to make it clear that the Berlusconi family sees itself as a player not only in the Italian but also in the international television business .
Strong position in the Italian market
However, the home market is still the economic basis. Led by the three most important MFE programs Canale 5, Rete 4 and Italia 1, the Berlusconi channels for the first time came almost on an equal footing with the Italian state television RAI, which is 99.56 percent in the hands of the Ministry of Finance.
Last year, the Berlusconi programs reached an average rating of 36.2 percent during prime time. 55 percent of the Italian TV advertising market is in the hands of MFE’s Berlusconi company Publitalia.
In what has been a difficult international TV market for years, Berlusconi’s television company has held up relatively well. Although the trip to digital pay-TV failed, Mediaset Premium was discontinued in 2019. With the Mediaset Infinity streaming platform, the Berlusconi company is now trying to get involved in the Internet business, and MFE’s new specialty TV channels are also successful.
In 2021 the company made a net profit of 374 million euros, in the general crisis year 2022 it was still 216.9 million. A takeover attempt by the French media group Vivendi was fended off in 2021.
Europe-wide plans in television business
Mediaset has long benefited from the political protection of Silvio Berlusconi. But Piersilvio Berlusconi recently swam free as CEO. In contrast to his deceased father, he is not driven by any political sense of mission. Piersilvio sees himself as a business manager, he hasn’t done anything else in his life. Since 1992 he has been working in companies of the family concern.
The time when his father got into politics, Piersilvio Berlusconi said a few years ago, was a “nightmare” for him. Significantly calmer in character than Signor Papà, Piersilvio, who studied philosophy for a number of years, recently had trash programs thrown out of the programme.
International business is in Piersilvio’s hands, and as CEO he pushed ahead with increasing MFE’s stake in the German company ProSiebenSat.1. Piersilvio Berlusconi said he would like to expand the family television into a “pan-European company”. Apart from Italy and Germany, MFE is primarily active in the Spanish TV market.
At the head of the holding company Fininvest: daughter Marina Berlusconi.
But the Berlusconi group is much more than media. The family’s holding company is called Fininvest and has been managed by Berlusconi’s eldest daughter Marina since 2005. The now 56-year-old was repeatedly discussed as her father’s successor in politics, for example when Silvio Berlusconi had to resign from all political offices in 2013 after being convicted of tax fraud.
But Marina has so far shown no ambitions to switch to politics. She is considered a tough manager with strong leadership and has kept Fininvest on the road to success for years. According to the balance sheet from September 30, 2022, Fininvest had a turnover of 3.8 billion euros in the previous year, with a net profit of 360 million.
Company shares distributed to the children
In addition to the media company MFE, Fininvest also includes the publishing house Mondadori, the bank Mediolanum with insurance companies, the football club AC Monza, the Manzoni theater in Milan, the real estate company Fininvest Real Estate & Services, but also the airline Alba Servizi Aerotrasporti, which operates the company’s three jets and one manages helicopters, as well as shares in Italian digital finance companies Soldo and Satispay. According to their own statements, the Fininvest Holding companies employ almost 20,000 people.
What will become of the Berlusconi business empire should now be the decision of his children. Until recently, Silvio Berlusconi retained 61 percent of Fininvest. Marina and Piersilvio (who come from Berlusconi’s first marriage to Clara Dall’Oglio) each own 7.65 percent. The other children Barbara, Elenora and Luigi (from the marriage to Veronica Lario) hold a 21.42 percent stake in Fininvest via the Quattrodicesima holding.
The opening of the will will be exciting. It is expected that Silvio Berlusconi will have determined how his Fininvest holdings are to be divided among his children – and who will have what power with them in the future.