FDBusiness.com

On 12 June 2015 the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) announced that it would refer the proposed £80 million sale of Dairy Crest’s Dairies operations to Muller UK & Ireland Group for a phase 2 investigation unless Müller offered acceptable undertakings to address the CMA’s competition concerns.

Müller has offered undertakings to address the CMA’s concerns. The CMA has decided that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the undertakings or a modified version of them might be acceptable and has until 21 August 2015 to decide whether to accept the undertakings. Should the CMA accept the undertakings, completion of the sale will move forward and be before the end of 2015 at the latest.

Mark Allen, chief executive of Dairy Crest, comments: “We have always believed the sale of our Dairies operations is good news for the whole UK dairy sector at a time when it faces significant challenges. We welcome these developments and the potential for a swifter completion. We will continue to work with Müller and the CMA to help the sale go through.”