On November 18, 2019, CCI approved the acquisition, of the Plates and Coils Mill Division, as a going concern on a slump sale basis (‘Target business’) of Welspun Corp Limited (‘Welspun group’) by Laptev Finance Private Limited (‘Laptev’) of the JSW group[1].

JSW Steel Limited is engaged in the manufacture and sale of a wide variety of iron and steel products, while the Target business produces hot rolled coils, sheets and plates. CCI observed that the technical characteristics, intended use, price levels etc., of various steel products may be different and each of the product segments form a separate relevant product market. Based on this, CCI held that the activities of the parties overlap with respect to the following steel products: (i) Hot rolled coils and sheets (‘HR-CS’); (ii) Hot rolled Plates (‘HR-P’); (iii) in the sub-segmentation (on the basis of thickness) of HR-P i.e., 0-5 mm, 5-25 mm and above 25mm.

CCI approved the combination and observed that horizontally: (i) the combined market share of the parties in each of the segments is less than 35% and the incremental market share is 0-5% in terms of gross product and domestic sales; and (ii) the combined entity will continue to be constrained by other players in the market such as, Tata Steel Limited, Steel Authority of India Limited and Essar Steel. Further, CCI observed that the combination is unlikely to foreclose the market at vertical levels since the Target business has limited presence in India and incremental market shares are low.

[1] Combination Registration No. C-2019/09/684.