Mexico gives nod for Wood Group-Amec FW merger

The Mexican anti-trust commission has approved the proposed merger between oilfield services giant Wood Group and its compatriot Amec Foster Wheeler.

According to Wood Group, the recommended all-share transaction has received all the required regulatory and third party clearance conditions.

The transaction is expected to be completed on October 6, 2017 following the sanction of the scheme by the Court and the delivery of the Scheme Court Order to the Registrar of Companies.

As previously reported, the proposed merger had raised competition concerns in the UK, but this has now been resolved as the UK’s competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has accepted the two firms’ proposals to resolve competition concerns regarding the merger.

The CMA began investigating the merger of the two companies in June 2017. After it found that competition concerns could arise in the supply of engineering and construction services and operation and maintenance services, the two companies offered to sell Amec Foster Wheeler’s businesses in these areas to address the CMA’s concerns.

The CMA found that this proposal would, in principle, be suitable to address its competition concerns and opened a public consultation in August. Following this, the CMA said on Tuesday it is now satisfied the issues it identified will be fully addressed by the remedy offered. The CMA has therefore decided that the merger will not be referred for an in-depth, phase 2, investigation.

The remedy consists of the majority of Amec Foster Wheeler’s UK upstream oil and gas business located in the UK and serving UK customers, excluding its commissioning business, qedi. The CMA does not require the parties to complete the sale of the remedy business in advance of completing the combination.

Offshore Energy Today Staff