Competition regulator gives green light to outdoor media tie-up
The Australian competition regulator has given the green light to JCDecaux's purchase of APN Outdoor Group and OohMedia's acquisition of Here There & Everywhere's street furniture arm Adshel in a major shakeup to the out-of-home advertising sector.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims said the transactions were in "complementary" segments of out-of-home advertising, despite some concerns about competition from market players.
“The information before us, including bidding data for sites, indicates that the respective
merger parties rarely compete head-to-head,” Mr Sims said.
OohMedia announced intentions to buy HT&E's Adshel for $570 million in the same month that outdoor advertiser JCDecaux announced plans to buy APN for $1.12 billion.
“Some market participants expressed some concerns, in particular about the possible anticompetitive bundling of different out-of-home categories," Mr Sims said.
"However, the major media agencies and large advertisers did not generally express strong concerns, and the ACCC considers that bundling is unlikely to have a significant impact on competition,” he said, noting the merged companies would continue to compete and the options for advertisers and site owners would not "change significantly".
An earlier $1.8 billion tie-up between APN Outdoor Group and OohMedia was objected to by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in May 2017 on the grounds it would substantially lessen competition in the market.
“This is very different to the proposed tie-up in early 2017 between oOh!media and APN Outdoor, where the companies were in direct competition with each other,” Mr Sims said.
This comes as the City of Sydney street furniture and free WiFi tender, said to be worth about $500 million and the biggest outdoor advertising contract in the country, closed its expressions of interest at the end of July and is expected to issue a request for tender to shortlisted companies next month.
Telecommunications companies joined forces with outdoor advertising groups, with sources saying HT&E's Adshel and Singtel Optus have long had a joint submission in for the contract, JCDecaux is coordinating with Telstra, and APN has been aligned with TPG Telecom.
More to come.