THE Competition and Tariff Commission (CTC) last year approved 12 mergers as companies continued to consolidate their operations by seeking new partners post-dollarisation in 2009, an official has said.
Report by Victoria Mtomba
Nine investigations into restrictive practices were also handled by the commission.
The approved mergers included those involving Kingdom Bank and AfriAsia Bank, acquisitions of Zimbabwe Online Private Limited by Data Control & Systems (1996) Tractive Power by Zimplow Limited and Pelhams by TN Holdings.
Also approved was the acquisition of Premier Milling Private Limited by Croco Holdings and takeover of the Visa point of sale acquiring business of Standard Chartered Bank of Zimbabwe Limited by rival CBZ Bank Limited.
CTC also gave a nod to the acquisition of Haggie Rand by Zimbabwe IDC South Africa, acquisition of Matetsi Water Lodge by Elijay Investments, the takeover of TN Bank by Econet Wireless, acquisition of Renaissance Merchant Bank Limited by the National Social Security Authority and acquisition of National Foods by Innscor.
CTC assistant director Benjamin Chinhengo said the mergers were mainly spurred by the desire to strengthen their balance sheets.
“Some banks were merging to meet the minimum capital requirements while some companies were consolidating their activities to strengthen their balance sheet position,” he said CTC conducted full-scale investigations into the abuse of monopoly positions by both Harare and Bulawayo city councils.
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The restrictive cases included supplementary paper on the alleged price fixing issue in the bread industry on cartelisation and price-fixing, Innscor Africa Limited group of companies, Cimas Medical Aid Society and private abattoirs.
Common restrictive and unfair business practices investigated included anti-competitive agreements of both horizontal and vertical nature such as price-fixing and market-sharing arrangements.
Bid-rigging, exclusive dealing, and resale price maintenance and abuse of dominant or monopoly positions for example excessive pricing, discriminatory distribution, tied and conditional trading were also investigated.
Since its inception in 1998 to September 2010, the commission had handled over 1 000 competition cases with 53% involving restrictive and unfair business practices of which 47% being mergers and acquisitions.
CTC is a non-commercial statutory body that gives regulatory and advisory services on governmental policies.
The government is the main source of funding for the commission.
