The Office Clears Acquisition of the MAFRA Publishing House by AGROFERT Holding
AGROFERT Holding comprises manufacturing and trading companies in the Czech Republic and abroad which are active in agriculture, food and chemical industry, as well as in the field of trade in agricultural machinery and equipment for agricultural production, in forestry and also in the field of publishing, through a subsidiary company AGF Media.
MAFRA Company was controlled by the German publishing house Rheinisch-Bergische Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. MAFRA deals mainly with the publishing national daily newspapers Mlada fronta DNES and Lidove noviny. MAFRA Group also publishes free daily newspaper METRO and non-periodical magazines and operates Internet news websites metro.cz, lidovky.cz and especially iDNES.cz. Other activities offered by MAFRA Group are printing production, telecommunication services, etc.
The Office assessed the impact of the merger on the areas of publishing periodicals, providing advertising space in periodicals, Internet news and Internet advertising.
In the area of publishing periodicals, the Office concluded that the activities of the merging companies do not overlap as the published periodicals of both groups are of different type. While MAFRA Group focuses on provision of information about current situation in the Czech Republic and abroad (through publishing national daily newspapers), AGF Media Group provides more commentated news, not of the current character, in the regions of the Czech Republic (through 71 regional/district weekly newspapers 5plus2).
In the area of provision of advertising space, the Office regarded the difference between the advertising in national newspapers and advertising focused on regional readers, as it is in the case of weekly newspapers 5plus2. Also in the areas of on-line news and advertising, the Office did not see the risk of a distortion of the competition.
In the areas where the horizontal overlap of activities of the AGROFERT and MAFRA Groups occurs, the increased market share of the merged company will not exceed 25%. Pursuant to the Act on the Protection of Competition, the risk of a distortion of competition is not expected below this threshold. In case of the narrower definition of the relevant markets of publishing periodicals and provision of advertising space in periodicals, the activities of merging companies do not overlap at all.
The Office has cleared the merger as it will not result in the significant distortion of the competition in the assessed areas.
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