Franco-American group Vivendi was ordered to sell its 22% stake in BSkyB, which it acquired in 1999, late in 2000 as part of an agreement with competition authorities about its £34bn takeover of Seagram and Canal+.
Last year, Deutsche Bank took control of 400m BSkyB shares in an equity swap that allowed the French company to raise funds without having to sell the shares.
The bank has offered 250.6m BSkyB shares worth £1.7bn at today's market price. This morning, BSkyB shares were down 7.5p at 674p.
Deutsche Bank has also brought forward the exchange of the remaining 150m shares for equity certificates.
The move is expected to help Vivendi ease recent pressure about the size of its €33.8bn (£21.1bn) debt mountain, and avoid the risk of having its credit rating downgraded to junk status.
Vivendi shares were up 4.4% at €31.16 in Paris this morning.
The sale completes the deal Vivendi made with European competition authorities, which were concerned that once Vivendi bought the half of Canal+ it did not already own, it would have too much control of the European pay-TV market unless it sold out of BSkyB.
Last week, UK telecoms firm BT sold half its stake in BSkyB. BT acquired the shares in return for its stake for British Interactive Broadcasting, the service now known as Open.
BSkyB took full control of the interactive TV service with the acquisition of BT's 19.9% stake in the business in a deal worth £387m.
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