IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v42y2021i6p199-228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Retrospective Evaluation of the GDF/Suez Merger: Effects on the Belgian Gas Hub

Author

Listed:
  • Elena Argentesi
  • Albert Banal-Estanol
  • Jo Seldeslachts

Abstract

We present an ex-post analysis of the effects of GDF’s acquisition of Suez in 2006, which created one of the world’s largest energy companies. We perform a series of econometric analyses on the market for trading at the Zeebrugge gas hub in Belgium. Removing barriers to entry and facilitating access to the hub through ownership unbundling were an important part of the objectives of the remedies imposed by the European Commission. Our analyses show a robust price decline after the merger. Additional evidence on traded volumes and number of hub participants is in line with an increased liquidity at the hub after the merger. This suggests the remedies were effective in limiting the potential anti-competitive effects of the merger. Moreover, it suggests that ownership unbundling has generated improved access to the hub. Therefore, remedies may have done more than simply mitigate the potential anti-competitive effects of the merger; they may have effectively created competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Elena Argentesi & Albert Banal-Estanol & Jo Seldeslachts, 2021. "A Retrospective Evaluation of the GDF/Suez Merger: Effects on the Belgian Gas Hub," The Energy Journal, , vol. 42(6), pages 199-228, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:42:y:2021:i:6:p:199-228
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.42.6.earg
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.42.6.earg
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.42.6.earg?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Choné & Laurent Linnemer, 2012. "A Treatment Effect Method for Merger Analysis with an Application to Parking Prices in P aris," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 631-656, December.
    2. Robin A. Prager & Timothy H. Hannan, 1998. "Do Substantial Horizontal Mergers Generate Significant Price Effects? Evidence From The Banking Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 433-452, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rosati, Nicoletta & Bomprezzi, Pietro & Martinez Cillero, Maria, 2024. "Critical dimensions in the empirical measurement of common shareholding," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gergely Csorba & Gabor Koltay & David Farkas, 2011. "Separating the ex post effects of mergers: an analysis of structural changes on the Hungarian retail gasoline market," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1118, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    2. Elena Argentesi & Albert Banal-Estanol & Jo Seldeslachts & Meagan Andrews, 2017. "A Retrospective Evaluation of the GDF/Suez Merger: Effects on Gas Hub Prices," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1664, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Gugler, Klaus & Szücs, Florian, 2016. "Merger externalities in oligopolistic markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 230-254.
    4. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2014. "Did Robert Bork Understate the Competitive Impact of Mergers? Evidence from Consummated Mergers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 67-100.
    5. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    6. Luca Aguzzoni & Elena Argentesi & Lorenzo Ciari & Tomaso Duso & Massimo Tognoni, 2016. "Ex post Merger Evaluation in the U.K. Retail Market for Books," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 170-200, March.
    7. Steven J. Pilloff, 2002. "What's happened at divested bank offices? An empirical analysis of antitrust divestitures in bank mergers," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-60, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Fabio Panetta & Fabiano Schivardi & Matthew Shum, 2009. "Do Mergers Improve Information? Evidence from the Loan Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 673-709, June.
    9. Enghin Atalay & Alan Sorensen & Christopher Sullivan & Wanjia Zhu, 2024. "Product Repositioning by Merging Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 868-908, June.
    10. Andrew Ang & Marie Brière & Ombretta Signori, 2012. "Inflation and Individual Equities," Post-Print hal-01494500, HAL.
    11. Jason Karceski & Steven Ongena & David C. Smith, 2005. "The Impact of Bank Consolidation on Commercial Borrower Welfare," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 2043-2082, August.
    12. Po-Lin Chen, 2024. "Era of restructuring: Deposit demand estimation and welfare consequences during the Japanese mega-bank mergers wave," Working Papers 2408, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    13. Robert Town & Douglas Wholey & Roger Feldman & Lawton R. Burns, 2006. "The Welfare Consequences of Hospital Mergers," NBER Working Papers 12244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Snellman, Heli, 2006. "Automated teller machine network market structure and cash usage," Bank of Finland Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, volume 0, number sm2006_038, July.
    15. Marie-Laure Allain & Claire Chambolle & Stéphane Turolla & Sofia Villas-Boas, 2013. "The Impact of Retail Mergers on Food Prices: Evidence from France," Working Papers hal-00920460, HAL.
    16. Azar, José & Barriola, Xabier, 2022. "Did the MillerCoors joint venture strengthen the craft beer revolution?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    17. Orley C. Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement," Working Papers 1137, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    18. Michiel Bijlsma & Andrei Dubovik, 2014. "Banks, Financial Markets and Growth in Developed Countries: a Survey of the empirical literature," CPB Discussion Paper 266, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    19. Pulak Mishra, 2018. "Are Mergers and Acquisitions Necessarily Anti-competitive? Empirical Evidence from India’s Manufacturing Sector," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 12(3), pages 276-307, August.
    20. Joel Stiebale & Florian Szücs, 2022. "Mergers and market power: evidence from rivals' responses in European markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(4), pages 678-702, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:42:y:2021:i:6:p:199-228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.