13 July 2018
Today, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) has conditionally approved the acquisition of Med Group Hammaslääkärit Oy by Colosseum Dental Group AS. As a condition of the acquisition’s approval, Colosseum Dental Group undertakes to sell a dental clinic in Imatra, Pieksämäki, Hyvinkää and Porvoo to its competitors.
Colosseum Dental Group is an international company focused on providing oral health and dental services. In Finland, Colosseum Dental Group owns Oral Hammaslääkärit Oyj, a nationwide dental health services company. Med Group Hammaslääkärit is part of the Finnish social welfare and health care services group, Med Group. Med Group Hammaslääkärit offers private dental health care services under the ONNI hammas (ONNI tooth) brand.
The agency investigated the impact of the transaction on all localities in which Oral and Med Group operate. The investigation revealed that the acquisition would have negative impacts on competition in the private oral health markets in Imatra, Hyvinkää, Porvoo and Pieksämäki. The market for private dental services is already highly concentrated in these localities and would become more concentrated as a result of the acquisition. According to FCCA’s evaluation, no new actors, whose emergence on the market would reduce the adverse competitive effects of the acquisition, are forthcoming in these localities.
In order to eliminate any problems with regard to competition, the Colosseum Dental Group has undertaken to sell one Med Group or Oral clinic in Imatra, Pieksämäki, Hyvinkää and Porvoo. The Colosseum Dental Group has also committed itself to not recruiting dentists over the next two years from the dental clinics it is selling, and not buying the sold clinics back at any time over the next ten years. According to the agency's assessment, the commitments made by the Colosseum Dental Group are sufficient to eliminate the reduction in competition caused by the acquisition.
Initially, the Colosseum Dental Group will itself strive to find buyers for the clinics it intends to sell but, after a certain period, the sales will be transferred to a trusted individual who is independent of the parties to the acquisition.
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: Senior Research Officer Samuli Muotka,
tel. +358 29 505 3680, 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 prevented 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.
Read more about merger control.