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Mfe has no doubts: Prosiebensat must get rid of its dating and e-commerce activities. And for this reason the proposal comes from Cologno: a split of the activities considered non-core. «The implementation of the split – we read in the note from Mediaforeurope – would entail the creation of two separate listed companies managed by their respective independent management teams».
The Mediaset group is pressing – and this time with a formal document to be submitted to the shareholders’ meeting on 30 April – on the German broadcaster of which it is a shareholder with a 29.7% stake. «The request aims to support the Executive Board of ProSiebenSat.1 in the oft-announced refocusing of ProSiebenSat.1 on the Entertainment activity, creating value for all shareholders».
«By presenting this proposal – we further read – Mfe intends to offer the Executive Board a solution to decisively pursue its strategy and enhance the activities in the best possible way in everyone’s interest». Furthermore, for the group led by CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi, in this way «we could also avoid the holding discount currently caused by the consolidation of very different and non-synergistic commercial activities under the umbrella of a single listed company through the demerger and the listing on the stock exchange of both legal entities”.
The game being played between Italy and Germany thus reaches a turning point with Mediaset which on several occasions has made itself heard about Prosieben’s need to focus on its core business. Even more so after the presentation of the 2023 accounts, in which the German subsidiary of the Mediaset group closed with a loss of 134 million, up compared to -49 million euros a year ago, due to the devaluations of the libraries. The picture is completed with revenues falling to 3.85 billion (-7.5%) and adjusted ebitda falling to 578 million (-14.8%). All while replicating the dividend issued for the 2022 financial year: 5 cents per share. Numbers that do not make Mediaset happy, which expects profits of more than 217 million euros for 2023.
Overtures have recently arrived from the Bavarian broadcaster, but also practical responses, which are anything but conciliatory. This is demonstrated by what happened with the Supervisory Board’s formalization of the candidates’ proposal for the renewal of the three positions on the same board on the agenda of the shareholders’ meeting on 30 April. The proposal is to confirm Klara Brachtlova, representative of the shareholder Ppf Group who joined the board in June, to renew the expiring mandate of Marjorie Kaplan and to indicate Pim Schimtz, who has just left the role of CEO in the Dutch group Talpa Network, as Ketan Mehta’s replacement. Both Kaplan and Schimtz qualify to be independent directors. As reported by Radiocor, the choice of candidates by the Supervisory Board was not shared with the main shareholder, Mediaforeurope. From which now two alternative names will come.