LISBON (Reuters) -MFE–MediaForEurope, the television group controlled by Italy’s Berlusconi family, is negotiating to buy no more than 33% of Portuguese media company Impresa from the Balsemao family, Impresa said on Wednesday.
A month ago, Impresa said the Balsemao family’s holding company, which controls more than 50% of the Portuguese media group, was in exclusive talks with MFE.
Although final terms are still being discussed, negotiations are for now limited to the purchase of the stake through a capital increase in Impresa, it said in a statement.
Impresa, which has a market capitalization of around 46 million euros ($53.7 million), gave no further details.
Shares in Impresa were down 2.1% at 1545 GMT.
Media tycoon Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the family’s patriarch, died on October 21.
Local media had long reported rumours of the Berlusconi family’s interest in Impresa, which owns broadcaster SIC and the weekly newspaper Expresso.
MFE-MediaForEurope, which already had TV operations in Italy and Spain, secured more than 75% of German peer ProSiebenSat.1 a month ago.
In the first half of this year, Impresa posted a net loss of 5.1 million euros ($6 million), above the 4 million euro loss in the same period in 2024.
Revenue fell slightly by 0.8% to 85.9 million euros, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation fell 35.5% to 2.9 million euros.
As of June, net debt stood at 148.2 million euros, an increase of 3.8% compared with the previous year.
($1 = 0.8575 euros)
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Richard Chang)
