IP/08/167
Brussels, 31 January 2008
Mergers: Commission approves acquisition of Securitas Direct by EQT The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the Swedish-based security services company Securitas Direct AB by the private equity fund EQT V Ltd. of the Channel Islands. After examining the operation, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it. One of EQT's portfolio companies is ISS, a Danish facility management company which is jointly controlled by EQT and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. It offers facility management services to mainly corporate customers, including manned guarding and alarms with remote monitoring and response.
Securitas Direct is active in security services through the provision of alarms with remote monitoring and response to both domestic and corporate customers in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. It was previously a division within the Securitas group of companies.
The activities of ISS and Securitas Direct overlap in the installation and maintenance of alarms and the provision of remote alarm monitoring and response services in Finland, where the new entity would have substantial market shares in the provision of such services to domestic customers. However, ISS and Securitas Direct are not close competitors because they focus on different types of customers (corporate and domestic) and the addition of market shares in the domestic market sector is very small. There are also a number of other international security companies active in Finland and a large number of smaller local players. The Commission's market investigation also showed that barriers to entry are relatively low and the domestic sector of the market is growing.
Further information on the case will be available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/cases/index/m99.html#m_4986
