Commission Approves Proposed Acquisition of BASF's Animal Feed Premix Business by Nutreco
Nutreco intends to acquire BASF's premix plants in eight countries worldwide - Italy, Poland and the UK in Europe, plus the US, Mexico, Guatemala, Indonesia and China. Nutreco will not acquire BASF's premix interests in France or Spain.
26/09/07 The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of parts of the animal feed premix business of the German company BASF Aktiengesellschaft by Dutch based Nutreco. 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.
BASF is a leading chemical company with a product portfolio ranging from chemicals, plastics, agricultural products and fine chemicals to crude oil and natural gas. As part of the restructuring of its fine chemicals division, BASF is withdrawing from the production of animal premixes.
Premixes are mixtures or blends of vitamins and feed additives used for animal nutrition.
Nutreco is one of the world's leading manufactures of animal feed premixes. It is also active in the production of compound feed for animals, fish feed and meat processing. Compound feed is the final feed product given to animals. It consists of an energy or protein source like grain or soya, together with a proportion of premix.
Nutreco intends to acquire BASF's premix plants in eight countries worldwide - Italy, Poland and the UK in Europe, plus the US, Mexico, Guatemala, Indonesia and China. Nutreco will not acquire BASF's premix interests in France or Spain or BASF's upstream production of vitamins and feed additives.
Although the proposed acquisition would consolidate Nutreco's position as one of the major producers of premixes in Europe, the Commission's investigation showed that the market would remain competitive with a sufficient number of alternative suppliers. This is also true in the case of the United Kingdom where the merged entity has a relatively high market share.
As BASF would retain its production of vitamins and feed additives, the Commission also concluded that competitors' access to these raw materials would not be affected by the proposed acquisition.
