Fininvest is the largest shareholder of MFE - MediaForEurope, which is currently the biggest private entertainment competitor in Italy, known for domestic operations in Italy through Mediaset (including Canale 5, Italia 1, Rete 4, among others), Spanish operations through Mediaset España, the film production company Medusa Film, and many other companies related to TV broadcasting.

On 5 August 2016, Fininvest signed a preliminary agreement to sell 99.93% stake of AC Milan to a Chinese private equity fund Sino-Europe Sports.

All of them were created at the end of the 1970s by covert associates of Berlusconi's and received significant investments (several hundreds of millions of euros at today's value) from still unknown sources.

Much of the documentation of that time relative to the early financial and banking operations of these companies has been lost, in one case in a fire.

A report on those matters was commissioned by the general Dipartimento Investigativo Anti-Mafia (Bureau of Anti-Mafia Investigation) of Palermo in the 1990s from a finance expert working at the Bank of Italy, Francesco Giuffrida, to supplement the evidence in a tentative case against Berlusconi and associates for their alleged involvement with the Sicilian Mafia.