BRUSSELS--French electrical equipment company Schneider Electric
SA (SU.FR) has received European Union antitrust approval for its
3.4 billion pound ($5.6 billion) acquisition of U.K. engineering
group Invensys PLC (ISYS.LN).
The approval clears the way for a deal, Schneider hopes will
raise its industrial automation and software business to the level
of the world's main players, such as Siemens AG, Mitsubishi
Electric Corp. and Rockwell Automation Inc.
The European Commission said Friday the deal doesn't raise any
competition concerns.
"The activities of the two companies are complementary and the
merged entity would continue to face several strong competitors in
the affected markets," the commission said in a statement.
Schneider agreed in July to pay 502 pence a share of U.K.-based
Invensys in a mix of cash and shares, a deal that was unanimously
recommended to shareholders by Invensys's board.
Schneider, with annual revenue of 23.9 billion euros ($32.5
billion), has in recent years made a big push into the business of
providing industrial sites with bundled offerings of electrical and
industrial equipment, software and services, instead of selling low
voltage devices, its historical business.
The company expects the deal to generate revenue savings of
EUR400 million a year by 2018 as a result of enlarged offerings,
complementary customer bases and additional scale from the
integration of Invensys with Schneider Electric. The company will
finance the acquisition with a mix of cash and debt.
Write to Tom Fairless at tom.fairless@wsj.com
(Inti Landauro in Paris contributed to this article.)
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