SAFLII [Home] [Databases] [WorldLII] [Search] [Feedback]

South Africa: Competition Tribunal

You are here:  SAFLII >> Databases >> South Africa: Competition Tribunal >> 2006 >> [2006] ZACT 44

[Database Search] [Name Search] [Recent Decisions] [Noteup] [Help]

Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) BV and Siemens Services Newco (Pty) Ltd (26/LM/Mar06) [2006] ZACT 44 (25 May 2006)

.RTF of original document

COMPETITION TRIBUNAL
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA



                                                               Case No: 26/LM/Mar06



In the large merger between:

Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) BV

and                                

Siemens Services Newco (Pty) Ltd



Reasons for Decision
_________________________________________________________________


APPROVAL

1.      
On 16 May 2006 the Competition Tribunal issued a merger clearance certificate approving the merger between Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) B.V and Siemens IT Services Newco (Proprietary) Limited. The reasons appear below.

THE PARTIES

2.      
The acquiring firm is Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) B.V. (“FSC”) which has it registered offices in the Netherlands. FSC is jointly controlled by Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (Germany) (“Siemens”), and Fujitsu Limited (“Fujitsu”) in equal proportions.

3.      
FSC wholly owns Fujitsu Siemens Computer (Proprietary) Limited (“Fujitsu Siemens SA”) which has its registered offices in Midrand, South Africa.

4.      
Siemens and Fujitsu control various firms in South Africa.The Siemens subsidiaries operate directly under the control of Siemens in Germany. Fujitsu subsidiaries operate directly under the control of Fujitsu in Japan. One of Siemens’ subsidiaries is Siemens Business Services (“SBS Germany”) and it owns 70% of the issued shares in of Siemens Business Services (Proprietary) Limited (“SBS RSA”). SBS RSA houses the business of Product Related Services to be transferred to Siemens IT Services Newco (Pty) Ltd (“Newco”).

5.      
The target firm is Siemens IT Services Newco (Pty) Ltd (“Newco”). Newco is currently a shelf company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens Business Services (Proprietary) Limited (“SBS RSA”).


THE MERGER TRANSACTION

6.      
The shareholding of the parties to the transaction pre and post merger is as follows:


PRE MERGER



FUJITSU
SIEMENS
FUJITSU SERVICES
(PTY) LTD

FSC GERMANY
SIEMENS IT
SERVICES NEWCO (PTY) LTD
SIEMENS TELECOMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD
FUJITSU
SIEMENS SA

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                        100%

76.7%                     50%               50%               70%
SBS RSA
(PRS BUSINESS HOUSED HERE)










 100% 100%
                                   
70%                                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                            
POST MERGER



FUJITSU
SIEMENS
FUJITSU SERVICES
(PTY) LTD

FSC GERMANY

SBS RSA
SIEMENS TELECOMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD
FUJITSU
SIEMENS SA

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                        100%

76.7%                     50%               50%               70%









 100%   

                                                                                                                    



100%

SIEMENS IT
SERVICES NEWCO (PTY) LTD
(PRS BUSINESS TRANSFERRED FROM SBS RSA)

                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

                 
7.      
The proposed transaction forms part of a transaction in terms of which FSC will acquire the Product Related Services business (“PRS business”) of Siemens Business Services GmbH & Co. OHG (Germany) (“SBS Germany”) which is housed in a number of Siemens subsidiaries in various parts of the world, including South Africa.

8.      
The South African leg of the transaction involves the acquisition of 100% of the issued shares in Newco by FSC.

9.      
Prior to FSC acquiring the issued shares in Newco, SBS RSA will transfer its PRS business (“the transferred business”) to Newco. FSC will, either directly or through affiliated undertakings, subsequently acquire the issued shares in Newco.


RATIONALE FOR THE TRANSACTION

10.     
The parties have submitted that the proposed transaction forms part of a transaction which is motivated by Siemens’s decision to focus its business activities on its core business being the production and sale of capital goods and accordingly divest the PRS business of SBS Germany worldwide.

11.     
FSC intends to enlarge its service offering to its customers in the field of IT services worldwide.

THE MERGING PARTIES’ ACTIVITIES

PRS Business “the transferred firm”

12.     
The business being transferred by SBS RSA to Newco entails the exclusive provision of IT Hardware maintenance. This IT hardware maintenance entails preventive and remedial services that physically repair IT hardware either onsite or at a centralised repair depot. It includes telephone technical troubleshooting and assistance for set up and all fee based hardware warranty upgrades.

13.     
To a very limited extent, the transferred firm also provides certain other IT services which are normally provided by other business units within Siemens, on an ad hoc basis to its IT hardware customers that request such services. These might include software maintenance and support, consulting, development and integration, IT management services, business management services.

FSC (“Acquiring firm”)

14.     
The acquiring firm, FSC, does not conduct any business of its own in South Africa. However, it wholly owns Fujitsu Siemens SA. The latter primarily sells IT hardware and software products.
15.     
To a limited extent, Fujitsu Siemens SA also offers IT hardware maintenance services, but only in the context of the maintenance contracts that it concludes with customers that purchase IT hardware products from Fujitsu Siemens SA.
16.     
Fujitsu Siemens SA does not provide the actual IT hardware maintenance services itself, but uses external service providers on a regular basis to provide the actual service.
Siemens

17.     
Siemens jointly controls FSC with Fujitsu. Siemens conducts business in South Africa predominantly via a number of subsidiaries. These subsidiaries provide a wide range of products in the business areas of information and communication, automation and control, power, transportation, medical, lighting, building technologies, finance and real estates.
18.     
One of Siemens’ subsidiaries, Siemens Technologies (Pty) Ltd provides IT hardware maintenance services in South Africa.
Fujitsu

19.     
Fujitsu does not conduct any business in South Africa but has a number of subsidiaries. These subsidiaries mainly design and build and provide IT solutions and services. They also provide:

19.1.   
an end-to-end IT service to business and government including retail solutions. Retail solutions include solutions aimed at exploiting multi channel retailing, managing in-store systems, integrating supply chains and optimising retail infrastructure;

19.2.   
infrastructure management (including data centre services, end-user services, enterprise management, internet managed services, managed services, integrated document and content management, open VME enterprise systems and sun solutions);

19.3.   
IT consulting (including enterprise content management, knowledge management strategy, Microsoft consulting and information security);

19.4.   
system integration (including application managed services, application portfolio management, business integration services and legacy migration);

19.5.   
solutions for financial services (consulting and IT infrastructure services to enable financial services organisations to reduce cost, make productivity improvements, and improve business processes). Only one of Fujitsu’s subsidiaries in South Africa, Fujitsu Services (Pty) Ltd also provides IT hardware maintenance services in South Africa.

Newco (“the Primary target firm”)

20.     
Newco is a shelf company that has not traded or conducted any business in South Africa. It has been specially created for the purposes of this transaction.


THE RELEVANT PRODUCT MARKETS

21.     
The merging parties have submitted that the market in which they compete can be defined broadly and narrowly. The broad market relates to the provision of IT services. Whereas the narrow market relates to the actual provision of IT hardware maintenance. The parties further submitted that IT services (“the broad market”) are divided into the following:

21.1    
IT hardware maintenance;
21.2    
software maintenance and support;
21.3    
consulting;
21.4    
Development and Integration;
21.5    
IT management services; and
21.6    
Business management services.

22.     
The transferred firm provides IT hardware maintenance services almost exclusively. The firms that form part of the acquiring firm in South Africa are involved in the provision of the services listed above, except the provision of Business management services. Thus, they also provide IT hardware maintenance services though it is to a limited extent.
23.     
There is therefore an overlap between the services supplied by the transferred firm and those supplied by the firms that make up the acquiring firm in relation the provision of IT hardware maintenance services.

24.     
The Commission has analysed the product market by categorising them into horizontal and vertical markets. The horizontal product overlap is between the services provided by the PRS SBS RSA (“alternatively Newco”) and those supplied by the firms that make up the acquiring firm in relation to the provision of IT hardware maintenance services. The vertical relationship exists between PRS Business (“the transferred firm”) and Fujitsu Siemens South Africa in that the transferred firm purchases IT hardware from Fujitsu Siemens SA.
25.     
The Commission defines the markets implicated as national since the market participants in this market operate on a nationwide basis and the condition of competition applying to the products concerned are the same for all traders in the national geographic market.


26.     
We can find no reason not to accept the Commission’s definition of the relevant product and geographic market, and in this respect we observe that there is no material disagreement between its views on the subject and that of the merging parties.


EFFECT ON COMPETITION

Horizontal Issues

27.     
The parties have provided the following table showing the market participants and the estimated shares they hold in the narrow market (Table 1) and in the broad market (Table 2) for IT hardware maintenance services in South Africa for the year ended 2004.

28.     
Table 1 below shows that post merger, the merging parties will have a combined market share of 6% in the narrow market for IT hardware maintenance services. This market share is substantially low and is unlikely to raise serious competition concerns Moreover, companies like Hewlett Packard, Ericson, Alcatel and Business Connexion will continue to compete and have a larger market share than the merging parties post merger.



Table 1: Market Shares in the market for IT hardware maintenance services in the narrow geographic market
Market Participant
Estimated market share(%)
IBM 3.5
Fujitsu Siemens SA        1.6
Hewlett-Packard 7.3
T-systems 0.1
SBS PRS (“the transferred firm”) 3.9
BT 0.2
Xerox 2.6
Dell Inc 1.8
Unlsys 0.8
Ericson 10.1
Sun Microsystems 0.9
Cisco Systems 1.2
NCR 1.4
Alcatel 10.1
Lucent Technologies 0.6
Siemens Communications and Enterprise 0.5
Nortel 0.3
Dimension Data 2.7