According to Bloomberg, the French media company is open to selling its 24% stake in Telecom Italia (valued at about €3.03 billion) to form a European media champion that would include Italy’s Mediaset. The move would provide a way to financially support the operation as well as to ease Italian regulators’ concerns about the French company’s increasing influence in the country’s media scene.
Since the beginning of 2016, Vivendi showed interest in acquiring Mediaset’s pay-TV unit, but an agreement was never reached.

Now, Vivendi’s immediate goal would be to forge a tie with the Silvio Berlusconi-owned group; the French company is even considering offering a stake in Vivendi to the Berlusconi family to resolve their dispute over the pay-TV deal that fell through.

Neither Telecom Italia nor Vivendi have publicly commented on the Bloomberg report. Last week, Mediaset outlined its strategy through to 2020, with pay-TV and video-on-demand (VOD) as main business drivers.

According to Bloomberg, Vivendi needs to resolve its differences with Mediaset before proceeding with its expansion plan in southern Europe.