Australia’s competition watchdog will not oppose US logistics giant Iron Mountain’s proposed $3.4 billion takeover of data management group Recall, after Iron Mountain undertook to sell most of its Australian business.
The news saw Recall shares rise 1.9% to $7.50, after jumping 3% in early trading.
Recall is currently Iron Mountain’s closest competitor for physical document storage.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims said in a statement yesterday the ACCC had significant concerns that in the absence of Iron Mountain’s undertaking the proposed acquisition would have been likely to substantially lessen competition for physical document management services.
But Mr Sims said he had now no problems with the takeover after Iron Mountain accepted a court enforceable undertaking to offload most of its Australian businesses.
Late last year Mr Sims had indicated that, without divestitures, the combined market share of Iron Mountain and Recall in Australia would be as high as 71%.
Four weeks ago, Recall deferred a shareholder vote on the takeover from March 17 to April 19 because it couldn’t allay the ACCC’s concerns in the original time frame.
But competition authorities in Canada, Britain and the US are still considering the deal between the two document storage and data protection companies.
