CCI clears deal between Legrand, Raritan

The Competition Commission has approved a multi-layered deal under which US-based company Raritan will become a subsidiary of Legrand Holdings, an electrical equipment and digital systems infrastructure player.
Raritan is into the business of providing hardware for data centres and related services. It also offers similar services for software in the power management solutions industry and related services for data centres.
The entity operates through Raritan International India Pvt (RIIPL) and does not manufacture any products in the country.
Legrand has presence in India through Novateur Electrical & Digital Systems Pvt and Adlec Power Pvt.
Giving its green light, the anti-trust regulator said the deal is not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India.

"It is observed that there is no horizontal overlap between the businesses of the parties in India as Legrand caters to the electrical and digital equipment used in the building industry whereas RIIPL operates as an end-to-end hardware and software solutions provider for data centres," CCI said.

There is no vertical relationship since they are not engaged in any activity relating to the production, supply, distribution, storage, sale and service or trade in products or provision of services which are at different stages or levels of production chain, the CCI order dated August 25 said.
As part of the deal, Edison has been set up as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Legrand for the purpose of the proposed combination and does not carry out any business activity at present.

Raritan's software business for data centres will be demerged into its wholly owned subsidiary, Sunbird Software Inc. Then, Raritan's principal shareholders will become the shareholders of Sunbird.
Post this step, Edison would merge with Raritan and then the latter would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Legrand.