Brussels, 01/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has cleared the planned acquisition of the specialty chemicals division of General Electrics - GE Advanced Materials - of the US by the American private investment group Apollo. The Apollo Group will acquire the whole of GE Advanced Materials, including all the shares in the joint ventures GE Toshiba Silicones and GE Bayer Silicones (together GEAM). The Commission investigated two product markets - specialty silicone fluids where a horizontal overlap has been identified and organosilanes (binding agents between organic and inorganic chemicals) where a vertical relationship has been identified. Although Apollo (Hexion) and GEAM are both specialty chemicals companies, they are active in fundamentally different areas. Therefore overlaps only occur at the margins of both companies' businesses. As regards specialty silicone fluids, the Commission found that the proposed transaction would not significantly impede effective competition as the increase in market share would be very minor and the merged entity would continue to face significant competition from other competitors such as Dow Corning, Wacker, Degussa and Shin Etsu. (cd)