The European Commission has resumed its in-depth investigation into UPS’ €5.16 billion takeoveroffer for TNT Express and now expects this to last until December 20, meaning any approval for the
mega-merger could come just before the end-of-year Christmas holiday period.The Commission stated on its website that after suspending the investigation deadline on August7 this suspension ended on August 14, with a new provisional deadline of (Thursday) December 20,2012. The Phase 2 in-depth investigation was briefly halted while additional information was soughtfrom the parties involved in the deal.
The European Commission is undertaking the deeper investigation into the deal in response topotential competition concerns in the small parcel delivery market, especially for internationalexpress services which are dominated by the four integrators, DHL Express, UPS, FedEx andTNT.
On Wednesday (August 22), UPS announced it was extending its offer for TNT Express fromAugust 31 until November 9, 2012, due to the European Commission’s in-depth investigation. UPS andTNT said in a joint press release that the conditions for completion of the offer, in particularthe antitrust condition, “will not be fulfilled before the expiry of the offer period on 31 August2012”.
Both companies stressed at the time that they still expect the transaction to be completed inthe fourth quarter of this year, which ends on December 31.
