Marina, Silvio Berlusconi's eldest daughter, held the hand of Marta Fascina, her last partner, as she entered the cathedral. Antonio Tajani, Italian Deputy Prime Minister, thanked the politicians for his participation, as one of the family. The Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, was applauded upon arrival by the thousands of people who gathered in the Duomo square to follow the ceremony.
The funeral of the former Italian prime minister, held on Wednesday in Milan, left images that give some clues about the great unknowns involved in his disappearance. While waiting for his will to be known, two important fronts are open with the succession of Berlusconi: the future of his economic empire, starting with that of Mediaset, and the fate of Forza Italia, a one-man party that now runs the risk of to die together with its founder and, therefore, to cause tremors in the Meloni Executive. The puzzle is expected to be complex. After all, the tycoon was the third largest fortune in Italy, with assets valued by Forbes at 6.4 billion euros.
Marina Berlusconi, 56, now considered the head of the family, has a lot to say on all issues. The tsarina is the woman in charge of the Fininvest conglomerate – the holding company that unites all the Berlusconi companies – and, above all, she was the right eye of her powerful father, who saw in her a financial brain. His brother Pier Silvio, the second, 54, is the one who rules as CEO of the Mediaset television group, the flagship, which recently became Media For Europe (MFE), to compete with Amazon or Netflix in the digital age. and moved its headquarters to the Netherlands.
Until his death, Berlusconi owned 61.21% of the shares of Fininvest –which in turn owned 50% of MFE– while his first two children, the result of his marriage to Carla Elvira Dall'Oglio, each have a 7 .65% of the business holding. Berlusconi had three other descendants from his second marriage to Veronica Lario (Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi), who between the three own 21.42% of Fininvest.
The natural thing would be that the patriarch would have wanted to follow this scheme and privilege Marina and Pier Silvio as heirs in the distribution of the important booty of the majority of his shares in the parent company, waiting to find out if, in addition to a generous sum of money , he will have left part of them to Fascina, his "almost wife" who did not part with him during his convalescence. This is anticipated by the Financial Times, which ensures that the first two children will inherit half of the father's shares, while the other three will share the remaining 30%. In the Fininvest galaxy there is also the Mediolanum bank (they own 30.1%), the leading Italian publisher Mondadori (53.3%) or the Monza football club, the latest toy of the Cavaliere. It was the only one of his businesses with losses.
“Unlike the party, where he has not designated a successor, Berlusconi planned his business succession very well because he was terrified of the scenario of a family battle. His companies will continue to be controlled by Marina and Pier Silvio, who have been involved for the longest time, ”says Andrea Colli, professor of Business History at Bocconi University in Milan.
One of the first knots that they will have to solve is what to do with Mediaset, when the golden days of general television have long expired due to the pull of foreign audiovisual platforms. Fininvest continues to control half of MFE, but with the burial speculation has already started about whether the children could decide to sell the audiovisual kingdom to one of its many European suitors, starting with the French Vivendi. It's not something to rush. "I don't see any valid reason to sell anything, for now," wrote Alan Friedman, author of the first authorized biography of the Cayman, in La Stampa.
Forza Italia is another story. If it were another of the listed companies, it is likely that Berlusconi would have opted to divest it long ago. Faced with the energy of younger far-right leaders such as Meloni or Matteo Salvini, in the last Italian elections he barely collected 8% of the votes. But it was much more than a party: il Cavaliere treated it as a basic asset to take care of its economic interests. He ran training as one of his businesses, and his parliamentarians, like other thousands of employees.
“The party has always been treated as a property of the Berlusconi family, because it is what it is, and it has bequeathed it to the family. Now Marina will have to decide what to do with this inheritance, which is useful, but also uncomfortable," explains Roberto D'Alimonte, a professor of Political System at the Luiss University in Rome.
Neither Tajani, number two of Forza Italia; nor the influential senator Licia Ronzulli, an enemy of the Foreign Minister and whom Fascina wanted to separate; not even she, Berlusconi's latest partner, has the authority to keep the party on its feet. The danger of a flight of parliamentarians towards other right-wing formations – some could go towards forces of the center – and that soon the funeral of Forza Italia will also be able to attend is very real.
"Only a Berlusconi can avoid the diaspora," D'Alimonte stresses. Marina has always said that she is not interested in a direct political role, but I don't know what she will decide at the risk of implosion. If she went down to the field of play and showed some of the qualities of the father, she could consolidate the game ”. The first-born is defined as a businesswoman with an iron will whose pulse does not tremble when making decisions. Her tenacity prevailed when she forced her father to give up his beloved club AC Milan and sell it for 740 million to a Chinese group to protect Mediaset from Vivendi's attacks. Therefore, she may not hesitate to sacrifice the party if she deems it necessary and she decides that Fininvest no longer needs an arm in the institutions. They would become another great Italian family with close relations with the political world, but without being part of it, like the more discreet Agnelli.
Another scenario is that of the merger between Forza Italia and Hermanos de Italia. Marina Berlusconi and Giorgia Meloni have a great relationship, and before signing the party's death certificate, the businesswoman could opt for a symbiosis, seeing the alliance that Meloni wants to implement between the group of European Conservatives and Reformists – of which Vox is a part , and who presides in the European Parliament – with the European People's Party to displace the Socialist Party. With this marriage they would lose the most moderate forces, but it would not be a crazy idea. After all, Berlusconi Sr. was the first to invent, in 2007, the confluence of the right with El Pueblo de la Libertad, which brought together liberals under the same roof with the successors of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, the Alianza National of Gianfranco Fini, the force that preceded Brothers of Italy.
But most likely, the sources consulted indicate, is that everyone will try to contain the movements until at least the European elections in June 2024. This is what Tajani wants, who appeared on Friday together with Ronzulli, group leader in the Senate; Paolo Barelli, in the Chamber of Deputies; and Fulvio Martusciello, in the European Parliament; to announce the convening of a national council to elect a regent to guide the party until the election of a leader. The message of unity that they were trying to convey was evident. This is also the greatest interest of Meloni, for whom the concern for the collateral effects of the implosion of the Berlusconians weighs much more than the desire to seduce some parliamentarians towards the Brothers of Italy. Less than a year before the community vote, in which she is determined to be the protagonist, she does not want problems.
Again, everything depends on the family: Forza Italia has a debt of 90 million euros with the Berlusconi, and in some training circles they wonder if the five brothers are going to want to continue financing this project. The photograph of Marina tucking in Fascina at the funeral is important. The "widow" of the Cavaliere has gained a voice within the formation in recent months. If her children trust her, she could be an interlocutor. The succession has only just begun.
