Silvio Berlusconi’s Business Empire: Who Will Take the Reins After His Death?

Now that patriarch Silvio Berlusconi is gone, the question is how his business empire will continue. The string of companies that threaded together the former prime minister and Italy’s richest man is worth billions.

Berlusconi made his first fortune in the late 1960s building a modern residential area near Milan. The film channel that he offered as an extra service to the new residents grew into media conglomerate MFE (Media for Europe), formerly known as Mediaset. The listed company currently has several commercial television channels in Italy and Spain and owns shares in the German media group ProSiebenSat.1.

In addition to the television activities, Berlusconi invested in the publishing house Mondadori, in several banks and insurance companies and in Italian football clubs. AC Milan, which he owned, was sold in 2017, but AC Monza is still owned by the family. According to the American magazine Forbes, Berlusconi’s private wealth at his death was about $ 6.8 billion.

All those companies and interests fall under the parent company Fininvest. Marina Berlusconi (56), the eldest daughter of the media tycoon, has been chairman of the holding company since 2005. By taking up this position at the time, she gave her father more room to maneuver in politics. Fininvest announced in a statement yesterday that nothing will change at the company for the time being.

But in the longer term, that remains to be seen. Berlusconi has never publicly announced who should succeed him after his death. And who gets the most power within the business empire also depends on how he divided his shares (he owns more than 61 percent of Fininvest) among his surviving relatives in his will.

Besides Marina, Berlusconi has four children. Pier Silvio (54) also comes from his first marriage, followed by Barbara (38), Eleonora (37) and Luigi (34) from his second marriage. Pier Silvio is director of ‘crown jewel’ MFE. Barbara and Luigi are Marina’s co-directors at Fininvest. The other daughter of Italy’s most famous man does not have an active role in the parent company, but according to Forbes, she has about seven percent of the shares, just like her siblings.

His last partner, Marta Fascina (33) – whom Berlusconi reportedly did not legally marry because of a dispute with the children over the inheritance – was not involved in the company. She is a member of parliament for Berlusconi’s political party Forza Italia.

Sources close to the family tell Reuters that daughter Marina will probably be in charge of the Berlusconi empire. She was not yet twenty when her father began taking her to important meetings.

In 2018, Berlusconi said on a television program that he was closest to his eldest daughter and that he spoke to her every day and asked for advice. Because of her drive to be successful in business, Marina is sometimes described by friends of the family as a ‘jackhammer’.

It remains to be seen whether the other children agree if Marina does indeed become the queen. The same sources close to the family say that Berlusconi was the glue that held the children together, “despite their large age difference and differing aspirations”.

Italian law stipulates that Berlusconi’s children receive two-thirds of the estate, in equal shares. The remainder of the estate may be distributed as desired by the deceased. By forgiving that part, it can be de facto decided who will hold sway at Fininvest. It may be fodder for a new hit series on one of Berlusconi’s entertainment channels, although the eternally young-looking senior will have none of it.