(CercleFinance.com) – The European Commission announced yesterday to authorize the proposed acquisition of GfK by Advent, subject to full compliance with the commitments proposed by Advent.
As a reminder, Advent is, through its subsidiary NielsenIQ, the leading provider of retail measurement services for FMCG in the European Economic Area (‘EEA’). NielsenIQ also provides consumer panel services.
GfK is the leading provider of consumer panel services in the EEA and is also active in retail measurement services for non-fast moving consumer goods.
In concrete terms, the Commission feared that the operation, as initially notified, would raise ‘serious’ competition concerns.
To address these concerns, Advent has offered to divest GfK’s global consumer panel services business (excluding the Russian business to facilitate the execution of the divestiture).
Advent also offered to provide the acquirer, after the sale, with transition services such as rebranding, access to IT services or access to logistics functions, for a transition period of up to one year, renewable twice at most.
According to the Commission, these commitments respond ‘fully to the competition concerns’ which had been raised by removing in particular the overlaps between the activities of NielsenIQ and GfK.
Following the positive feedback received during the market consultation, the Commission concluded that the transaction, as modified by the commitments, would no longer raise competition concerns.
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