Paris: Vivendi's acquisition of a 20 percent stake in Italian broadcaster Mediaset is not hostile but rather aimed at building a European company with global reach, the French media group's CEO told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
"We have a long-term interest, we want to be an industrial partner," Arnaud de Puyfontaine said in an interview published on Saturday. Vivendi this week became Mediaset's second-biggest shareholder behind Fininvest, the holding company of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, when it reached an initial goal of building a 20 percent stake.
Fininvest has called the move hostile, lodging a criminal complaint of market manipulation against the French firm and saying it will continue to raise its own stake.
Media reports said that Fininvest was considering asking for Vivendi's shares in Mediaset to be seized. But De Puyfontaine denied Vivendi was looking to take over Italy's biggest private broadcaster, saying it would have launched a takeover bid if that had been the case.
"We have the means to do so," he said, adding the French company had spent around €800m ($836m) to build the 20 percent stake.
But he declined to say whether Vivendi might launch a bid at a later date. Vivendi and Mediaset have been at loggerheads since July when the French group backtracked on a previous deal to buy the Italian broadcaster's pay-TV unit Premium and exchange a 3.5 percent holding in each company. "Having 20 percent makes us the second biggest shareholder and gives us a say in finding a good solution on Premium," De Puyfontaine said.
Asked about why the deal for Premium had fallen through, the CEO said Vivendi discovered it had signed up to an agreement that was different to what it first thought.
"It's as if they had invited us to dinner at a 3-star restaurant and then we found ourselves at McDonald's," he said.
De Puyfontaine confirmed he had met with Italy's industry minister Carlo Calenda on Friday to explain the group's strategic vision.
A source told Reuters that Calenda has told the CEO that Rome was unhappy with the Vivendi's hostile stake-building in Mediaset.
