Dubai's Istithmar will decide in the next month on whether to buy a controlling stake in a $4 billion Western European media company, the chief executive of the government-owned investment agency told Reuters.

Istithmar, which plans to invest as much as $3 billion this year, first said it was considering a European media acquisition in October. That investment is among six-to-eight deals Istithmar is working on, chief executive David Jackson told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit in Dubai.

'If we can't make something happen in the next month I think we would kill it,' Jackson said, declining to name the company or give details. -Reuters