By Danilo Masoni

MILAN, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Italy's top private broadcaster Mediaset SpA may put on hold any acquisition plans in Spain after a court ordered its controlling shareholder to pay damages in a dispute with a business rival, analysts said.
A court on Saturday ruled Fininvest, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's holding company which has 38.6 percent of Mediaset, must pay 750 million euros ($1.1 billion) to CIR for bribing a judge in a 1990s battle to buy publisher Mondadori.
Pressured by competition at home and supported by a strong balance sheet, Mediaset has set its sight on Spain, where a looming ban on state TV advertising could propel television campaigns towards private broadcasters.
The company, which already controls Spanish TV player Telecinco, has said several times it was interested in possible acquisitions, though it has denied media reports about specific moves.
A Milan-based media analyst said Mediaset's plans to expand in Spain still lacked a go-ahead from the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and that this week's court developments added uncertainty to the picture.
"Instead of going (into) Spain to buy a company, they might try to pump up some liquidity (into Fininvest). I don't see anything happening in the short term, until the legal front is clear," the analyst said, asking not to be named.
One banker in London said Mediaset did not have cash constraints and the 750 million euro order would not stop the company from making acquisitions, just made them harder.

"There is a cash outflow upstairs and ... so it is expected that they will need to pay a higher dividend going forward, which means less money to spend," the banker said.
Equally Fininvest may yet escape having to pay the fine. One broker has estimated the probability of Fininvest making the full 750 million euros payment at 25 percent.
Hit by a slump in advertising and challenged by growing competition from News Corp unit Sky Italia, Mediaset's net profit fell nearly 49 percent to 180 million euros in the first half of the year.
At the end of June its liquidity stood at 112.1 million euros and net debt was about 1.7 billion euros.
Spanish newspapers Expansion and El Economista said on Tuesday Mediaset was interested in buying Digital+, the digital TV platform of debt-laden media group Prisa, and in reaching an agreement with Prisa's free-to-air channel Cuatro.
The newspapers said Mediaset was thinking about teaming up with phone group Telefonica to buy Digital+. Telefonica is the leading shareholder of Telco, the company controlling Telecom Italia.
"Taking into account Telefonica's interests in Telecom Italia ... and Berlusconi's interests in Spain, we consider the possibility to reach an agreement as favourable for all parties", Spanish broker Banesto said on Tuesday in a note.
A Mediaset spokesman described the reports as "groundless press speculation". Its shares were up 1 percent at 4.68 euros at 1306 GMT. The DJ Stoxx index of European media companies was up 0.2 percent.
Spain in January made mergers easier by removing a limit that prevented any company from having more than 5 percent in more than one national terrestrial TV concession holder.
The country has also approved a law banning advertising on public TV channels from January 2010. Advertising revenue of state channels are about 500 million euros a year.

(Additional reporting by Robert Hetz in Madrid and Victoria Howley in London; Editing by David Holmes)

($1=.6788 Euro) Keywords: MEDIASET/SPAIN (danilo.masoni@thomsonreuters.com; +39 02 661 29 734; Reuters Messaging: danilo.masoni.thomsonreuters@reuters.net)

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