British regulator will review $19 billion merger between Vodafone and CK Hutchinson
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The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s main competition regulator, announcedOwhich begins review of the merger between Vodafone and CK Hutchinson’s UK operations – Vodafone UK and Three UK respectively.
The merger of Vodafone UK and Three UK was announced announced in June of this year. The volume of the transaction was estimated at $19 billion. Then the parties announced that the merger of assets would be carried out through an exchange of shares and that Vodafone would own a 51% stake in the new company, and CK Hutchison – 49%. The merger should create the UK’s largest mobile operator with 28 million subscribers. At the time, experts said the merger could raise questions among regulators because it would reduce the number of mobile operators in the UK from four to three, limiting competition and limiting choice for consumers.
At the first stage of the review, the CMA accepts submissions from all interested parties, including the parties to the transaction themselves, their competitors, shareholders and so on. “We will be carefully reviewing how this deal may impact competition in the UK, which could impact consumer choice and prices. We will also assess how this impacts incentives to invest in the quality of mobile networks in the UK,” explained CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell. As practice shows, such checks take months and sometimes years.
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