Brussels, 26/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - the European Commission has approved the acquisition by Office Deposit, the US distributor of office supplies, of French company Guilbert which is active in the same market.
The Commission investigation focussed on the transaction's likely impact in the market for contract stationery supplies to large customers, primarily in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Ireland, where the activities of the two companies overlap. Guilbert is one of the main players in each of these four countries. It is number one in France and the United Kingdom, number two in the Netherlands and number three in Ireland. Office Depot currently holds only limited market share. In this light, the Commission examined to what extent Office Deposit would likely have become a strong competitor in the foreseeable future and whether, as a consequence, the proposed transaction would raise competition concerns. It concluded that, even although the merged entity will become the number one supplier of contract stationery to large customers in France and the United Kingdom, it will face sufficient competitivepressure from the other main suppliers in the market, in particular Lyreco, a French player already neck-on-neck with Guilbert, and Buhrmann/Corporate Express of the Netherlands. The Commission also noted that large commercial customers typically utilise competitive tende/bid procedures to negotiate supply agreements. In the Netherlands, Office Deposit will second rank behind Buhrmann, and in Ireland it will come third after Buhrmann and Lyreco.