According to the Financial Times this morning (2 Dec 2005), the European Union’s competition authorities, have agreed to let the UK’s regulatory authorities deal with the proposed merger between Boots and Alliance UniChem. The Office of Fair Trading now has to decide whether the planned merger, announced in October, would be anti-competitive. The enlarged group is expected to have about 40 per cent of the UK’s wholesale market and 20 per cent of the pharmacy market.
Richard Baker, Boots chief executive, said in October that he thought getting clearance could take up to a year.
