Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is likely to announce if it has approved builders merchant Travis Perkins’s £558m takeover of rival merchants BSS Group next Tuesday (October 26).
Yesterday it was thought that the decision would be announced today, but the OFT states that the decision is unlikely to be made public until next week.
Travis Perkins launched the bid at the end of May and had expected to receive the go-ahead last month, but the OFT delayed it in order to take a closer look at potential competition issues. Now it has decided that it still needs more time to examine the deal.
It is thought that Travis Perkins might be required to sell off some branches in areas where there would be severe overlap. However, the general industry view is that the merger would be more complementary than competititive.
