{"id":2064958,"date":"2020-11-02T07:34:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T07:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/yorkshire\/news\/2064958-50m-merger-collapses-under-weight-of-competition-concerns"},"modified":"2020-11-02T08:14:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T08:14:40","slug":"50m-merger-collapses-under-weight-of-competition-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/yorkshire\/news\/2064958-50m-merger-collapses-under-weight-of-competition-concerns","title":{"rendered":"\u00a350m merger collapses under weight of competition concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Studio Retail’s planned \u00a350m sale of Findel Education has collapsed, two weeks after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said a deal would result in schools having “higher prices or reduced service”.<\/p>\n

It had originally agreed the sale to Wakefield-based YPO in December but this morning Studio Retail announced the transaction would not now be completed.<\/p>\n

It said: “The parties do not believe that there is a reasonable prospect of the transaction being cleared despite the dynamism and highly competitive nature of the market, and the benefits arising from the proposed transaction for schools and nurseries.”<\/p>\n

YPO and Findel Education are two major UK suppliers of educational resources, supplying stationery, furniture, and art and science materials.<\/p>\n

The CMA’s phase two investigation, which reported on October 16, judgedt he merger would leave educational institutions \u201cworse off with few alternative close competitors to the merged company\u201d.<\/p>\n

It had set a deadline of last Friday for views to be submitted about possible remedies to address the competition concerns.<\/p>\n

Phil Maudsley, group chief executive of Studio Retail, said: “Whilst we are naturally extremely disappointed with the CMA’s interpretation of this highly competitive market, Findel Education continues to have a sound digital-first strategy to deliver profitable growth over the medium term.”<\/p>\n

Studio Retail will now asses its options and plans to provide an update on its next steps when it reports its interim results in early December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CMA had warned that deal would result in ‘higher prices or reduced service’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":2048893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"coauthors":[81],"class_list":["post-2064958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deals","tag-featured-story","tag-top-story"],"yoast_head":"\n\u00a350m merger collapses under weight of competition concerns | TheBusinessDesk.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"CMA had warned that deal would result in 'higher prices or reduced service'\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/yorkshire\/news\/2064958-50m-merger-collapses-under-weight-of-competition-concerns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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