It would appear that there are many conflicting reports within the industry on what exactly is happening in respect to Whirlpool buying Maytag in a proposed merger. However I can confirm that Whirlpool have not (yet) bought Maytag and whether this is even possible is open to debate.
So far Whirlpool have presented Maytag with an unsolicited bid to by the beleaguered appliance manufacturer but this raises concerns of “anti-trust” in the US, similar to the UK and European Monopolies And Mergers situation as this would afford Whirlpool an unprecedented approximately 45-50% control of the US market by volume. A market share with a transaction such as this will be subject to review by the authorities and, very possibly, the US Senate itself.
The situation presents an interesting political conundrum for the US Government in that should they allow Whirlpool to purchase Maytag they may have created a monster, almost the appliance equivalent of Microsoft in market terms. But they have to balance that with the very real danger of political fallout from allowing Maytag, which is an American icon, falling into the hands of the Chinese in the form of Haier.
The sensible choice, on the face of it, is to allow the original purchase offer from the New York based consortium known as Ripplewood to purchase Maytag. But just how much control has the government got? And how long will the potential buyers hang in there before moving on to the next possible target?
In many ways this is of little concern to European consumers at this stage and isn’t really too much of a concern to the service agents or retailers. However it does show that Haier and, very possibly, other Chinese manufacturers are prepared to buy large US and, presumably, European manufacturers in an effort to gain acceptance by consumers who in this industry trust brand names, the name behind the brand often is not a concern to the customer.
But in news last night it would appear that Maytag’s shares have rallied putting yet another possible spanner in the works and upping the ante yet again.
Kenneth Watt
