DIC Australia Pty Limited - proposed acquisition of Pacific Inks (Australia) Pty Limited

Summary

DIC Australia Pty Limited (DIC Australia) proposed to acquire the business assets, inventory and goodwill of Pacific Inks Australia Pty Limited (Pacific Inks) (the proposed acquisition).

Market definition

The parties overlap in the manufacture and supply of water-based liquid inks. The ACCC considered the competitive effects of the proposed acquisition in the national market for the manufacture and supply of water-based liquid ink.

Competition analysis

The ACCC considered that the proposed acquisition was unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition in any relevant market.

In forming this view, the ACCC had regard to the following factors:
- the competitive constraint imposed by other local suppliers of water-based liquid inks,
- the countervailing power exercised by large packaging customers;
- the low barriers to entry and expansion; and
- the competitive constraint imposed by imported water-based inks in terms of providing a substitutable product, potentially enabling customers to import water-based inks directly and the competitive constraint this is likely to impose on the merged entity.