Brussels, 13/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has authorised the acquisition by Robert Bosch GmbH of Rexroth, a Mannesmann subsidiary. The authorisation is conditional upon the sale of Bosch's radial piston pumps business to prevent a dominant position in the market. The move comes within the framework of a vast operation aimed at joint control by Siemens and Bosch of the industrial holding company called Atecs, part of the Mannesmann group.
The Commission had first of all (unconditionally) authorised Siemens to take control of Dematic, VDO and Sachs. It had, however, decided to open a more detailed investigation concerning the Bosch/Rexroth move, as it was concerned by the strong position held by both companies on the hydraulic piston market (see EUROPE of 31 August, p.7). The Commission had considered as insufficient the project put forward by Bosch to sell the disputed business, wishing to assure that the buyer would be a powerful competitor, something it could not determine in the first phase. If Bosch, in fact, had been able to sell its radial piston pump business to a "weak" buyer, after having acquired Rexroth AG (which is number one on the axial piston pump market), then it would have been able to gradually recover the market shares lost during the sale. The strong relations between Bosch and its customers in the industrial hydraulics sector would have been sufficient to persuade the latter to use radial piston pumps for axial piston pumps as there is a high degree of substitutability between the two types of products. Bosch therefore agreed to seek a powerful buyer, in this case the US company Moog, before the operation was carried out. This is the first time that the Commission, for sales that are a condition for merger approval, imposes the obligation of finding a buyer before the operation is carried out.