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MERGERS: AMO SR approved the merger of the undertakings Arca Investments, a.s., Ing. Rudolf Adam and Finportal, a. s.

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On 19 December 2019 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic, the Division of Concentrations, (hereafter “the Office“) approved the merger, which is grounded in the acquisition of the joint control of the undertakings Arca Investments, a.s., Bratislava and Ing. Rudolf Adam over the undertaking Finportal, a. s., Bratislava.

The undertaking Arca Investments, a.s., belongs to the economic group Arca Capital, which is an investment financial group operating in a wide range of areas. They can be divided into the following groups:
  • a private equity and real estate group, in the framework of which it operates in the areas of real estates, food, energy, tourism and recreational services, retail, agriculture, job mediation and IT platforms and applications,
  • a financial group providing primarily financial services in the areas of the provision of consumer and business loans, services for licensed entities, financial intermediation and collective investment.
The undertaking Ing. Rudolf Adam prior to the merger performed the exclusive control over the acquired undertaking Finportal and, moreover, it operates in the SR also in the area of consulting and advisory activities and in the area of the mediation of investment gold.

The company Finportal, a.s., operates in the area of financial intermediation. It controls the subsidiary companies, which are the part of the merger in question, namely the company Finportal Reality, a.s., Bratislava, which performs real estate activities and the company Online Finance, s. r. o., Bratislava, which performs the operation of a web portal for the comparison of housing loans.
 
In assessing the effect of the merger on the conditions of competition, the Office focused on those activities of the undertakings, in the framework of which it comes to an overlap as a result of the merger - in the given case it concerned a horizontal overlap in the area of the financial intermediation and real estate services, and on the areas, where it comes to a vertical interconnection between the activities of the undertakings as a result of the merger.
 
The Office came to the conclusion that the merger does not rise competition concerns as a result of the horizontal overlap between the activities of the parties in the area of financial intermediation neither in the area of real estate services provision, in particular with regard to the estimated market shares of the merging parties in both of these areas, following the information on markets structure. In the area of ​​financial intermediation, it took into account also mainly the number and the character of competitors in this area, which normally offer financial intermediation across all subareas, as well as the fact that the merging parties and also their competitors in the area of financial intermediation have similar, respectively overlapping composition of cooperating financial institutions, while with respect to financial institutions generally there is no exclusivity in relationship to financial agents. In relationship to the operation of portals offering online financial intermediation, the Office took into account that the operation of its own web portals of financial intermediation (including products comparison offer), or the use of external web portals is a common practice in this area and it is used also by competitors of the merging parties.
 
The Office came to the conclusion that the merger does not rise competition concerns neither as a result of the vertical overlap between the activities of the parties, while evaluating the following possible vertical interconnections:
  • the area of the provision of loans and also collective investment (the group Arca Capital) in relationship to the financial intermediation in these subareas (the acquired companies),
  • the area of the development by the form of the construction of apartment buildings, etc. (the group Arca Capital), in relationship to the provision of real estate services (the acquired company),
  • the area of the operation of web portals of financial intermediation for the third parties - financial intermediaries as a supply market (the group Arca Capital) and financial intermediaries market as a consumer market.
After the evaluation of all documentation and information obtained during the administrative proceedings concerned, the Office did not identify that the merger concerned would significantly distort effective competition on relevant market, in particular as the result of the creation or the strengthening of a dominant position. So the Office came to the conclusion that the merger assessed is in accordance with the provision of the Article 12 Paragraph 1 of the Act on Protection of Competition.
 
 The decision came into force on 9 January 2020.