Introduction

With revenues of almost €4 billion and more than 15,000 employees, the Fininvest Group is one of Italy's leading companies and a world leader in media and entertainment, sectors on which, since the mid nineties, the company has increasingly focused its efforts. The history of the Group founded by Silvio Berlusconi begun about fifty years ago and has been marked by success, linked firstly to an avant-garde approach to real estate and subsequently in a number of highly innovative sectors.

Underlying the success of Fininvest there is an entrepreneurial vision that is attentive to changes in the society and to the evolution of markets, a vision that is sustained by a spirit of initiative that is able to look creatively at the most advanced sectors of the economy.

These characteristics led, in the late seventies, to the decisive intuition; the possibility of reaching households directly through television.

Combined with the philosophy of service developed by Fininvest in its previous experience, this lead to a dual approach to television: on the one hand as a means of satisfying the public's demand for entertainment and

information, and, on the other, the opportunity for companies to find new spaces for commercial communication. This intuition formed the basis for Fininvest's rapid growth and had, at the same time, a marked impact on the economic growth of the country.

Today the Group is engaged in important challenges along the lines identified for the development of its core business: the process of internationalisation, which now sees the 27,5% of revenues generated outside of Italy, a close attention to innovation and the opportunities offered by technological development and the continuous reinforcement of content, which has become increasingly important with the multiplication of distribution platforms.

In the context of the Italian economy, Fininvest is undoubtedly a prime example of the value of enterprise and it is an irreplaceable element in the country's cultural and civic growth. Thanks, yet again, to the clarity of its strategic choices, the excellence of its operating companies, a solid financial basis and, above all, the extraordinary qualities of the people who work in the Group, who have, from the beginning, represented its major strength.