European Commission clears Premier Farnell's Avnet deal

The EC said the companies’ activities overlap in most European Economic Area countries. However, it concluded that the transaction would raise no competition concerns “because the merged entity has a moderate market share in the overall market for distribution of electronic components and the increment brought about by the transaction is very small”.

“In addition, customers would be able to source electronic components either from various alternative distributors or directly from manufacturers,” it said.

Back in July, Premier abandoned its recommendation on an offer by Datwyler Technical Components in favour of the bid from Avnet at 185p per share in cash, which valued the issued share capital at about £691m.

Datwyler had been offering 165p per share in cash.

Premier said at the time: “In evaluating the Avnet offer, the board of Premier Farnell has considered various aspects of the Avnet offer including valuation, transaction timing and execution risk, and considers the Avnet offer to represent a superior offer for Premier Farnell shareholders, as compared to the Datwyler offer.”

At 1205 BST, Premier shares were up 0.1% to 184.70p.