The Securities Market Commission (CMVM) announced on its website that the Board of Directors of the regulator decided to lift the suspension of trading in Impresa – SGPS shares, stating that the suspension served its purpose of allowing the market to absorb information.
On Sunday, September 28, late in the day, Impresa issued a second clarification, at the CMVM’s request, stating that, “according to information provided by its majority shareholder, within the scope of publicly disclosed negotiations with the MFE group, the possibility of acquisition of a significant stake (direct or indirect) for control of Impresa is not ruled out, reiterating that, as of this date, there is no binding agreement to that effect.”
The first clarification came at 00:59 on September 27, when, in response to the news released late Friday, Impresa announced that its majority shareholder had informed the company of exclusive contacts with the MFE group to assess potential corporate transactions for acquiring a significant stake in Impresa.
At the time, the owner of SIC emphasized that there was “no binding agreement between the shareholder and MFE for this purpose” as of the current date.
The news of the negotiations was initially disclosed by the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, on Friday afternoon, in an article titled “MFE relaunches expansion, ‘unfreezing’ the Portuguese Impresa SGPS dossier” [‘MFE rilancia l’espansione scongelando il dossier portoghese di Impresa SGPS’, in the original version].
Subsequently, at the start of the market session, CMVM suspended Impresa’s shares to allow the market to absorb this information.
The Italian group MFE – MediaForEurope, previously known as Mediaset, is controlled by the Finivest group, owned by the family of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Recently, the company concluded the purchase of the German group ProsiebenSat1, acquiring 76.5% through a public takeover bid (OPA), and now its attention is focused on Portugal.
According to Il Messaggero’s report on Friday, during the MFE Board meeting two days earlier in Cologno Monzese, which “approved the semi-annual report, CFO Marco Giordani informed (…) about the resumption of negotiations with Impresa.”
The publication noted that negotiations between the two companies “began in the 2024 version,” as Il Messaggero had revealed “on July 18 of that year,” according to the article.
The Italian newspaper recalled that this dossier had been analyzed by Mediaset in the spring of 2019, during conflicts with Vivendi, and mentioned that Impresa “has a market value of 43 million euros on the Lisbon Stock Exchange.”
The report stated that among the items on the table is whether the MFE group will purchase the entire Impresa SGPS group or only some assets, such as SIC, adding that “the conclusion of the deal is expected by the end of the year.”
It also mentioned that “the price will not be high but should include a potential OPA.”
[Updated at 11:57 AM]
