Commission Grants Clearance For St John To Acquire Medical Alarm And Monitoring Assets From Securely

The Commerce Commission has granted clearance for The Priory in New Zealand of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (St John) to acquire certain assets relating to the medical alarm and monitoring business, which includes lone worker and duress alarm monitoring, from Electra Services Limited, which trades as Securely. The proposed acquisition excludes Securely’s property security alarms used for government, commercial and residential purposes.

In reaching its decision, the Commission considered the potential impact of the proposed acquisition on competition in national markets for medical alarm and monitoring services being provided to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) funded private users, self-funded private users and commercial customers.

Division Chair Anne Callinan said the Commission was satisfied that the acquisition is unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any New Zealand market.

“Our investigation indicated that in all of the affected markets, St John and Securely are not each other’s closest competitor and the merged entity is likely to continue to face competitive constraint from other medical alarm providers. Our investigation revealed that these competitors offer products of comparable levels of quality and service in the MSD-funded market in particular, and have the ability to expand,” said Ms Callinan.

“We also consider that MSD has some ability to achieve competitive outcomes through its tender design process and, more generally, encourage customers to shop around to make sure they are getting the best deal.”

A public version of the written reasons for the decision will be available on the Commission’s case register in due course.

Background
We will give clearance to a proposed merger if we are satisfied that the merger is unlikely to have the effect of substantially lessening competition in a market.

Further information explaining how the Commission assesses a merger application is available on our website.

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