TomTom wins EU permission to buy Tele Atlas

By David Lawsky

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - TomTom (TOM2.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world's biggest maker of car navigation devices, won unconditional permission from the European Commission on Wednesday to buy its main map supplier, Tele Atlas (TA.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), for 2.9 billion euros ($4.5 billion).

"The Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition," the European Union executive said in a statement, confirming a Reuters report from mid-April.

TomTom and Tele Atlas issued a joint statement welcoming the news.

"The ruling of the EC is the best possible outcome for TomTom and Tele Atlas allowing the new combination to go ahead with the full execution of its strategy," the statement said. It noted that U.S. authorities cleared the deal last year.

Tele Atlas shares were up 2.37 percent at 29.84 euros in late morning trading, and TomTom was down 0.31 percent at 25.95 euros.

The Commission said it had focused its investigation on the ability and incentive of the merged company to increase costs for rival makers of portable navigation devices.

It also looked at whether the new company would limit access to maps for competitors and if that might affect consumers.

"The merged company would be unlikely to pursue these strategies because its ability to restrict access to digital maps ... would be limited by the presence of an upstream competitor, Navteq," the Commission said.