On 18 July 2018, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) approved Quant Finland Oy’s acquisition of Suffra Holding Oy. The FCCA has concluded that the acquisition will not significantly impede effective competition on the Finnish market.
Quant Finland Oy is a subsidiary of Quant AB, a company registered in Sweden and operating in the industrial maintenance services sector. Suffra Holding Oy exercises control over Sataservice Group Oy, which in turn exercises control over Sataservice Oy and Sataservice Sähkökonehuolto Oy.
Both Quant and the Satorservice Group offer their customers outsourced industrial maintenance services, among other things. Quant’s service range consists of the total outsourcing of maintenance services, the outsourcing of maintenance management, asset class outsourcing and special maintenance services in particular. Sataservice’s range of industrial maintenance services is divided into total maintenance agreements covering full maintenance outsourcing, maintenance contracts without outsourcing full maintenance responsibility and the provision of individual maintenance services. Sataservice also offers project deliveries.
The FCCA has concluded that the acquisition will not significantly impede effective competition on the Finnish market. The combined market share of the parties remains low on the outsourced industrial maintenance services market.
The FCCA’s decision includes business secrets of the parties involved. The decision cannot be published until the business secrets have been removed, i.e. in around two weeks’ time.
More information:
- Research Officer Jenna Huttu,
tel. +358 (0)29 505 3576, firstname.lastname@kkv.fi
According to the Competition Act, the FCCA must be notified of the transaction if the combined turnover of the parties to the corporate transaction exceeds 350 million euros and the turnover from Finland of at least two of the parties exceeds a combined total of 20 million euros. The FCCA will approve a corporate transaction if it has none of the harmful impacts referred to in the Competition Act. The FCCA will intervene in corporate transactions if its investigations suggest that the acquisition substantially impedes effective competition on Finnish markets or a substantial part of the markets, particularly through the creation or reinforcement of a dominant market position. Where necessary, notifications of acquisitions are considered in two stages. The so-called first stage takes a month at most. If the acquisition is clearly not harmful to competition, or if the harmful effects can be prevented1 by means proposed by the parties to the acquisition, the acquisition is approved during the first stage. If not, the FCCA decides to conduct a further investigation of the matter, during which the acquisition and its competition effects are investigated in further detail.