Commission To Issue Statement Of Issues On Contact’s Proposed Acquisition Of Manawa

The Commerce Commission has decided to issue a Statement of Issues for the application from Contact Energy Limited seeking clearance to acquire up to 100% of the shares in Manawa Energy Limited.

The Statement of Issues will be published on the Commission’s case register in due course, and will outline the Commission’s potential competition issues with the proposed acquisition following its initial investigation. The Statement of Issues will invite submissions from Contact, Manawa and other interested parties.

The Statement of Issues is not a final decision and does not mean that the Commission intends to decline or clear the application for clearance.

The Commission was scheduled to make a decision by 24 December 2024, however an extension of time has been agreed between the Commission and Contact. The new decision date is 31 March 2025.

Background

Contact and Manawa are both generators and wholesalers of electricity in New Zealand. Contact and Manawa wholesale the electricity they generate to electricity retailers as well as to large commercial and industrial end users. Contact also retails electricity to all types of customers however Manawa does not, having sold its retail business to Mercury in 2022.

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: https://comcom.govt.nz/business/merging-or-acquiring-a-company

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