French group Vivendi has won two narrow victories at a Telecom Italia shareholder meeting, succeeding with its proposal to enlarge the Italian firm’s board from 13 to 17 seats, while also blocking a plan to convert savings shares into ordinary voting stock. Shareholders representing around 56% of Telecom Italia’s shares were at the meeting, and the proposal to enlarge the board needed to gain a majority of votes to pass; 53% of votes went in favour of Vivendi. Meanwhile, the stock conversion plan required a two-thirds majority to proceed, but the vote in favour was just short with 62.25%. Vivendi had already said it would be abstaining.
Media and communications group Vivendi has built up a stake of just over 20% in Telecom Italia since inheriting an 8.3% interest earlier this year as part of Telefonica’s buyout of Vivendi’s Brazilian telco business GVT. The stock conversion would have seen its shareholding reduced to around 14%. Telecom Italia’s newly enlarged board will review the proposals again in the future, Bloomberg quoted the telco’s Chairman Giuseppe Recchi as saying.