NMa clears Mecom/ Wegener acquisition following sale of door-to-door newspaper subsidiary

The Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) has cleared the acquisition of Wegener by the British media firm Mecom. Clearance was given after Mecom revised its original acquisition plan. The merger proposal has been changed to provide for Mecom's hiving off of its door-to-door newspaper subsidiary De Trompetter. The move safeguards competition in the local and regional advertising market in the eastern part of the province of Noord-Brabant and Limburg.

Both merger parties publish regional daily newspapers as well as door-to-door newspapers, for which they offer advertising space. In the Netherlands, Mecom is active in the market for local and regional advertisements in the eastern part of the province Noord-Brabant and Limburg through its subsidiary Media Groep Limburg. Wegener is a major player in the Netherlands and is active in the market for local and regional advertisements in the eastern part of the province of Noord-Brabant and, to a limited extent, in the northern part of the province of Limburg.

If parties had maintained the original acquisition plan, they would have acquired a high combined market share in the market for local and regional advertisements in the eastern part of the province of Noord-Brabant. Following the acquisition deal, advertisers would have lacked an important alternative, as Mecom and Wegener are the two major competitors in this region. Furthermore, other providers of local and regional advertisement, already present in the market, are of significantly smaller size, potentially exerting relatively little competitive pressure on the post-merger combination. Also, opportunities for advertising in other types of media, such as flyers and the Internet for instance, do not mount sufficient countervailing force against the strong position of Mecom and Wegener, states the NMa.

If parties had maintained the original acquisition plan, Wegener would disappear as the most probable competitor in the province of Limburg.

On the basis of the NMa's analysis during its first-phase merger investigation, Mecom has revised its acquisition plan. The majority of door-to-door newspapers published by its subsidiary De Trompetter are being sold to a competitor. As a result, there is no longer any reason to assume that the acquisition will result in a significant impediment of competition in the market for local and regional advertisements in the eastern part of the province of Noord-Brabant and the province of Limburg.

The decision will be published as soon as possible on the NMa website at www.acm.nl (Dutch version only).