Plot twist. The board of directors of Telecom Italy has approved an exclusive negotiation with Cairo for La7. The offer submitted by was not followed up Hourglass nor, above all, was a time supplement granted to XNUMX Diego Della Valle to finalize an offer for the issuer.
In fact, the Board of Directors of Telecom Italia, according to a note published at 21 in the press agencies, examined the offers and "approved the start of a negotiation phase exclusive with Cairo Communication for the sale of the entire stake in La7 Srl with theexclusion of the share of MTV Italia (51%) held by La7 itself”. The decision was taken "by majority" and not unanimously. The councilor specified this while leaving the Telecom headquarters Tarak Ben Ammar. "The message we wanted to give is that politics does not enter the Telecom board - added Ben Ammar - The message is that we took a decision before the elections in the sole interest of the company".
The comment of the Marche entrepreneur Della Valle was not long in coming. “We take note of the decision of the Telecom Italia board of directors. As far as we are concerned, we wanted to try to build a new model of media company that would involve a group of Italian investors, professionals who currently work at La 7 and others who were about to arrive, to try to develop even more determinedly a television pole consistent with the principles for safeguarding the independence of information”.
But it was the president of the who crossed the finish line Turin football, which is already the broadcaster's advertising concessionaire. During the day the hypothesis had spread that there was a possible agreement between Cairo and Della Valle. “I know Diego well – Cairo said in the morning – Our personal relations are good. However, we did not hear each other on the subject”. In any case, the note from Mr. Tod's seems to close the way to these speculations.
Now, the ball passes to the grenade president for a negotiation phase that does not promise to be easy. The initial offer from Cairo, deemed unsatisfactory by the executive chairman of Telecom Franco Bernabe (but not to the directors who report to Telco, who considered it an acceptable start-up basis) envisages: the purchase of just the broadcaster with all the employees leaving Telecom Italia in charge of the most profitable part, i.e. the multiplexes ( worth 250 million). But the telecommunications company, in addition to a contribution of between 50 and 100 million, would have to take on 150 million debt.
