UK financial watchdog to launch inquiry into S&P Global-IHS merger
Quantum Commodity Intelligence - The UK's competition watchdog on Tuesday launched an inquiry into the planned $44.5 billion merger between S&P Global and IHS Markit, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in a release published Monday, potentially delaying the completion of the deal.
The planned acquisition of IHS Markit Ltd by S&P Global was announced by the two companies in December last year, with the completion date of the merger pencilled in for the end of 2021 in a deal that would create the world's largest financial data provider.
Monday's announcement by the CMA comes after it had requested comments from any interested party on the deal as it examines whether the merger would "result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services".
Invitations for comments opened on June 28 and were subsequently closed on July 12, with the CMA announcing its phase one inquiry into the deal to both parties on Monday.
Both companies put out an updated statement in May saying the sale was considered to overcome regulatory and antitrust hurdles to allow for the closure in the second half of this year of the biggest merger since 2019.
The watchdog will decide whether to move the case to a more in-depth phase two enquiry on October 19, it said on Monday.
The CMA said it could not guarantee that the decision will be announced on or before this date – potentially delaying a decision on the merger beyond the end of December.
The move could also scupper the purchase of Oil Price Information Services (OPIS) by News Corporation for $1.15 billion, delaying the latter's entry into energy pricing.
IHS Markit had agreed to sell OPIS – the publisher of benchmark LPG and coal prices as well as US wholesale transportation fuels – to News Corporation in a bid to overcome a regulatory investigation into a reduction in competition in energy benchmark providers.
S&P Global owns Platts, the world's biggest publisher of oil price benchmarks.
The inquiry comes as regulators are taking an increasingly tough approach to mega-mergers.
Reinsurance brokerages Aon and Willis last month unexpectedly pulling out of their $30 billion merger after reaching an "impasse" with the US Department of Justice, which had looked to block the deal on competition grounds.
S&P's purchase of IHS Markit would be the biggest deal in more than two years.
Quantum competes with the S&P Global business S&P Global Platts, IHS Markit and OPIS in providing news, analysis and pricing services for commodity markets.
