Berlusconi reaches divorce agreement with wife

Over the weekend Berlusconi and his wife met for the first time in months at a divorce hearing in Milan that lasted five hours, where the Italian PM has managed to secure a climb -down in the divorce settlement, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

In fact, 53-year-old Veronica Lario has backed down after securing a house and getting assurances that their three children would have a greater share of Berlusconi's 'Mediaset' media empire, which is currently headed by his children from his first marriage, the report said.

"An agreement between the two is very close," unnamed legal sources for both were quoted as saying. Even a leading Italian daily the 'Corriere Della Sera' put the story on its front page under the headline "Veronica and Silvio find an agreement" and described how it had "been amicable for all", the British newspaper said.

73-year-old Berlusconi and his wife are locked in a bitter divorce battle, after it was revealed he had attended the 18th birthday party last year of a lingerie model. The mother of their three children began divorce proceedings, saying she could no longer be with a man who "associated with minors and who was ill".

Lario, a former actress had initially aimed high with a demand of more than 3-million-pound-a-month maintenance plus a home for their children from Berlusconi who's Italy's second richest man said to be worth around 5.6 billion pounds. The family has a vast portfolio of homes across Italy in Milan, Tuscany and Rome, a luxury home on the island of Sardinia, and property in London, the Caribbean and the US.