Prior notification of a concentration

(Case M.9191 — SoftwareONE/Comparex)

Candidate case for simplified procedure

(Text with EEA relevance)

(2018/C 446/08)

1. On 4 December 2018, the Commission received notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 ( 1 ) This notification concerns the following undertakings: — SoftwareONE Holding AG (Switzerland), over which KKR & Co. Inc. exercises negative control, — Comparex AG (Gemany), directly wholly-owned by PERUNI Holding GmbH and indirectly wholly-owned by Raiffeisen Informatik GmbH. SoftwareONE acquires within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation sole control of the whole of Comparex AG. The concentration is accomplished by way of purchase of shares and the issuance of SoftwareONE shares to PERUNI Holding GmbH by virtue of a capital increase.

2. The business activities of the undertakings concerned are: — for SoftwareONE: distribution of information technology (‘IT’) products and the provision of IT services. It helps customers optimise their software sourcing (process and commercial terms) and the technical set-up of their software architecture. It manages all aspects of its customers' software portfolios, — for KKR: a global investment firm, which offers a broad range of alternative asset funds and other investment products to investors and provides capital markets solutions for the firm, its portfolio companies and other clients. KKR's affiliated private equity funds invest in companies in a variety of sectors. Each KKR-affiliated portfolio company has its own board of directors, which generally includes one or more KKR representatives, and is operated and financed independently from other KKR-affiliated portfolio companies, — for Comparex: provision of IT services and the distribution of IT products. It serves corporate customers spanning from small businesses to large international corporations as well as public institutions. Comparex's portfolio of services encompasses licence management, software procurement and cloud services, and software asset management.

3. On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope of the Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved. Pursuant to the Commission Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain concentrations under the Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (2) it should be noted that this case is a candidate for treatment under the procedure set out in the Notice.

4. The Commission invites interested third parties to submit their possible observations on the proposed operation to the Commission. Observations must reach the Commission not later than 10 days following the date of this publication. The following reference should always be specified: M.9191 — SoftwareONE/Comparex Observations can be sent to the Commission by email, by fax, or by post. Please use the contact details below: Email: COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu Fax +32 22964301 Postal address: European Commission Directorate-General for Competition Merger Registry 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel BELGIQUE/BELGIË

(1) OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1 (the ‘Merger Regulation’).

(2) OJ C 366, 14.12.2013, p. 5.