On 8 May 2024, the Competition Authority authorised the concentration of OÜ Playground Advertising, AS Postimees Grupp and OÜ Target Master by decision No 5-5/2024-026. The notice of concentration was submitted to the Competition Authority on 22 December 2023. As an interested party, AS Eesti Post submitted an opinion and objections to the concentration. In order to control the concentration, define the product markets, analyse the competitive situation and assess the impact of the concentration, the Authority commenced supplementary proceedings concerning the concentration by decision No 5-5/2024-004 of 19 January 2024.
AS Postimees Grupp, a party to the concentration, is the largest media group in the Baltics, operating in the fields of printing, television, radio, online media, and advertising through subsidiaries in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. OÜ Playground Advertising is a holding company whose subsidiaries provide agency services and media advertising. OÜ Target Master is an advertising agency whose main activities are media planning, development of creative solutions and mediation of the production of printed promotional materials, development of e-marketing solutions, including − up to the moment of submission of the notice − the development of creative solutions for mainly unaddressed advertising materials and preparation for mailing, strategic planning of mailing and production of printed materials along with mediation of direct mail and unaddressed advertising mail services.
Before the transaction, 100% of the shares in OÜ Target Master were owned by AS Postimees Grupp. The concentration enabled OÜ Playground Advertising and AS Postimees Grupp to jointly acquire dominant influence over OÜ Target Master.
In supplementary proceedings, the Competition Authority analysed and requested information from the competitors and customers of the parties to the concentration, as well as other interested parties. As a result of the proceedings, the Competition Authority concluded that the product market for this concentration is the creation of advertising, organisation of the distribution of advertising and, more broadly, the distribution of advertising in Estonia. The Competition Authority specified that the product market for the distribution of advertising must, among other things, be segmented separately into the product markets for direct mail and unaddressed advertising mail.
Having analysed the responses of the competitors and customers of the parties to the concentration, the Competition Authority found that the creators of advertising and organisers of its distribution are versatile: most of them can provide the creation and/or distribution of advertising in many channels.
It also came out that the role of OÜ Target Master in organising the distribution of advertising in the unaddressed advertising mail channel is limited to the formal consolidation of volumes in order to secure a more favourable price from AS Eesti Post, since there are essentially no other distributors of advertising in this channel.
The Competition Authority found that the concentration would not create or strengthen a dominant position in the product markets for advertising creation or publication management, and that the concentration would not significantly affect the competitive situation or the structure of the product markets.
The Competition Authority supervises the concentration of undertakings if the parties’ total turnover of the previous financial year in Estonia exceeds 6,000,000 euros and the turnover of at least 2 concentration parties in Estonia exceeds 2,000,000 euros each. The turnover of a party to the concentration is calculated based on the Regulation No 68 of the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications of 17 July 2006 ‘Guidelines for Calculation of Turnover of Parties to Concentration’.