Blackrock is the world’s largest asset manager and the CMA is worried the deal may affect competition in the UK.
The UK’s competition regulator has launched a probe into asset manager BlackRock’s acquisition of the UK data company Preqin.
On 3 December, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) inviting comments from interested parties regarding the deal, which is worth £2.55bn ($3.22bn).
The deal was first announced in June, and today (13 December), the watchdog has given notice to both parties in relation to the merger enquiry, which has placed the CMA on alert due the deal’s prospect of market dominance.
Explaining its concerns, the CMA said that it is considering whether it is or may be the case that the transaction between BlackRock and Preqin, if carried into effect, could result in “a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the UK for goods or services”.
The CMA has set 12 February 2025 as the deadline for its Phase 1 decision of the probe into the deal.
The CMA has made headlines a number of times over the past two months in relation to matters involving some well-known companies.
In November, the CMA concluded that the partnership between Google parent company Alphabet and Anthropic, the start-up behind the AI chatbot Claude, did not qualify for an investigation. The watchdog looked at ways through which Google could exercise control over Anthropic and concluded that the “available evidence” did not indicate that Google has the “ability” to do so.
That same month, an independent inquiry group for the CMA provisionally recommended that the watchdog consider investigating Apple and Google for their dominance in the mobile ecosystem, with the group finding that the mobile browsing market is “not working well for UK businesses and millions of phone users”.
And last week, the CMA approved a merger between telecoms companies Vodafone and Three, while also putting into place strict conditions as part of its approval.
In the context of Blackrock, it was also recently reported that its stock rose to a record high of $1070.65.
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