Parretti to Restructure European Firm Used to Acquire MGM/UA

Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti has quietly moved to dismantle the European holding company through which he controls the vast majority of shares in MGM-Pathe Communications Co.

The step reflects a restructuring of the complex European holdings that Parretti used in acquiring MGM/UA Communications Co. for $1.3 billion last year.

A Parretti spokesman said the financier’s control over the holdings wouldn’t be increased or diminished by the restructuring.

According to a notice posted in a Luxembourg newspaper earlier this month, Parretti’s principal holding company, Comfinance SA, has scheduled a special meeting on Jan. 29 in Luxembourg to consider its “dissolution and liquidation.”

Two other Parretti companies, Interpart SA and Intercorporation SA, are also set for liquidation on that date.

Asked about the dissolution, Parretti spokesman Craig Parsons said the financier plans to consolidate his holdings under Melia International NV, a Dutch holding company. Melia takes its name from a Spanish hotel and travel chain purchased by Parretti and associates several years ago.

“It’s an internal matter to simplify the organization,” Parsons said. “The companies will be under the same control, and the principals will be virtually the same.”

Parsons declined to elaborate on Melia’s exact ownership, but the majority of its shares appear to be held at present by Parretti and by fellow investor Florio Fiorini.

Fiorini, who is co-chairman of MGM-Pathe, has maintained a low profile in the United States while Parretti has been prominent in his dealings with the studio.

Parretti’s Comfinance owned 88.5% of the financier’s American-based Pathe Communications when Pathe completed the MGM/UA acquisition last November.

According to a 1989 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Parretti owned 20% of Comfinance, and his wife, Maria Cecconi, owned 30%. Other holders weren’t identified.

Pathe relied on a $570-million cash infusion from what it identified only as the “European interests” for the purchase of MGM/UA. Earlier SEC filings by Pathe identified the “European interests” as being Parretti and Fiorini.

MGM-Pathe has never described in detail the source of the $570 million with which the “interests” purchased 57 million new Pathe shares.

Earlier this month, MGM-Pathe caused a stir in Hollywood when several of its checks to suppliers bounced. The studio blamed processing problems stemming from the merger of Pathe and MGM/UA operations.

Despite widespread rumors of a cash shortage, the company on Jan. 11 made an overdue interest payment of $26 million several days before it would have defaulted on $400 million in bonds.