Atlas Copco seeks clearance to acquire Ash Air

Atlas Copco seeks clearance to acquire Ash Air
Issued 02 April 2014

Release No. 89

The Commerce Commission has received an application from Atlas Copco South Pacific Holdings Pty Limited (Atlas Copco) seeking clearance to acquire some of the assets of Lancaster Group Limited including Ash Air (N.Z) Limited, Ash Air Oil & Gas Limited, MBAR 2011 Limited, and Fox Air NZ Limited (together, Ash Air).

Under the proposed acquisition, Atlas Copco would acquire Ash Air’s import, distribution and servicing business in New Zealand.

Atlas Copco is a subsidiary of Atlas Copco Group, which is based in Sweden. The Atlas Copco Group manufactures a range of equipment including air compressors, blowers, vacuum pumps and air treatment products and Atlas Copco imports and supplies these products in New Zealand.

The Ash Air companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Lancaster Group Limited. Like Atlas Copco in New Zealand, Ash Air imports, distributes and services a range of equipment including air compressors, blowers and vacuum pumps and air treatment products. However, unlike Atlas Copco, Ash Air does not manufacture any of these products itself.

A public version of the application will be available on our Clearances Register shortly.

Background

Assessing an application for a merger or acquisition

When considering a proposed merger, the Commission must decide whether the competition that is lost in a market when two businesses merge is substantial. We will give clearance to a proposed merger only if we are satisfied that the merger is unlikely to have the effect of substantially lessening competition in a market.
A fact sheet explaining how the Commission assesses a merger application is available at
www.comcom.govt.nz/merger-assessment

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