EU: Nordic Capital gains conditional okay to buy Intrum Justitia

Private equity fund Nordic Capital gained EU antitrust approval on Monday to buy Sweden’s Intrum Justitia after pledging to sell overlapping debt collection and debt purchase businesses in five neighboring countries.

The concession came after the European Commission voiced concerns about the strong market position of both Intrum Justitia and Nordic Capital-owned Lindorff, both of which have the scale to serve large customers in the banking, utility and telecoms sectors.

“In order to address the competition concerns identified by the Commission, Nordic Capital offered to divest the whole of the debt collection and debt purchasing businesses of Lindorff in Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Sweden, and the whole of the debt collection and debt purchasing business of Intrum Justitia in Norway,” the EU competition enforcer said.

Debt purchasing typically involves the transfer of a creditor’s debt portfolios to the debt purchaser which in most cases collect the debt themselves.

Full Content: Reuters

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