CCI Approves Additional Acquisition of 2.78% of Equity Shares of Ecom Express Private Limited by CDC Group PLC.

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Apr 29, 2021

CCI Approves Additional Acquisition of 2.78% of Equity Shares of Ecom Express Private Limited by CDC Group PLC.

On February 10, 2021, CCI approved the additional acquisition of 2.78% of the equity share capital of Ecom Express Private Limited (‘Ecom’) by CDC Group PLC (‘CDC’). The proposed acquisition would increase CDC’s stake in Ecom to 9.81%.

CDC already holds the right of representation on Ecom’s board of directors and did not acquire any additional rights relating to Ecom’s management and affairs, under this acquisition.^[1]

CDC is a development financial institution, wholly owned by the Government of United Kingdom. It holds investments in entities operating in India in areas such as micro-finance, banking, healthcare, NBFCs, healthcare, dairy processing, online food retail, financial technology, and online food retail.

Ecom provides third-party logistics (‘3PL’) services in India, including fulfilment and warehousing services, and hyperlocal delivery services.

CCI did not find any horizontal or vertical overlaps between the business activities of CDC and Ecom. It found some interface between the business activities of Ecom and CDC’s portfolio companies, such as customer-supplier relationships, but considered them to be competitively insignificant. Moreover, as CDC did not acquire any managerial additional rights in Ecom, CCI did not find any competition concerns.

[1] Combination Registration No C-2021/01/808.

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