Acquisition of Agropol by AGROFERT conditionally approved
2 Apr 2009
The Office for the Protection of Competition has conditionally cleared proposed acquisition of Agropol Group, a.s. by the company AGROFERT HOLDING, a.s.
The decision is conditional upon fulfillment of structural remedies for the benefit of effective competition which were accepted by the party to the proceeding. The decision has already entered into force.
AGROFERT HOLDING is the holding company of the AGROFERT group which holds property shares in number of production and trade businesses in the Czech Republic and abroad. The group is principially active in agriculture, food production and chemical industry.
Agropol Group is mainly active in the agriculture sector in the Czech Republic. In particular, the group provides services and trade and financial consultancy to farmers, including encashment of their plant production. Furthermore, the group engages in poultry processing, trading with cereals, oilseed, legume and other plant production, feeding mixtures ingredients. Agropol is also active in storage, trading and distribution of agrochemicals and provision of seed corn of maize, sunflower, rape and other plants.
After detailed analysis of relevant markets affected by the merger, the Office indentified possible competition concerns on nine markets (retail market of inorganic fertilizers, retail market of feeding mixtures, purchase of cereals and oilseed) in six regions of the Czech Republic. Market position of AGROFERT will be strengthened also on other markets, however, on those substantial competition pressure and third-party businesses´ choice of alternative suppliers or customers are going to be preserved.
To address the competition concerns of the Office on the markets most affected by the merger, AGROFERT committed to divest selected parts of the business of several companies from groups AGROFERT and Agropol and minor share which AGROFERT holds in one of its competitors. The purchaser of the divested assests must be a company with all prerequisites to use the divested parts of the business for creation of additional competitive pressure on the merged entity. Likewise, AGROFERT must not burden the subject of divestiture with non-standard obligations till the divestiture takes place and after it takes place AGROFERT must apply in relation to the subject of divestiture standard business conditions. In view of the remedies proposed, the Office concluded that the remedies would be sufficient to remove its concerns.
External Relations Department of the Office
09/045/HS012