6.10.2016   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 367/3

1.

On 29 September 2016, the Commission received notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1) by which investment funds managed by affiliates of the undertaking Apollo Management, L.P. (‘Apollo’, United States) ultimately controlled by Apollo Global Management LLC acquire within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation control of part of the undertaking Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (‘Rackspace’, United States) by way of purchase of shares.

2.

The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:

—   for Apollo: affiliates of Apollo invest in companies and debt issued by companies involved in various businesses throughout the world including, inter alia, companies in the chemical, cruise line, IT consulting, security, financial and glass packaging businesses,

—   for Rackspace: a US publicly traded company, whose principal activity is the provision of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and which also offers managed cloud services.

3.

On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope of the Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved. Pursuant to the Commission Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain concentrations under Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (2) it should be noted that this case is a candidate for treatment under the procedure set out in this Notice.

4.

The Commission invites interested third parties to submit their possible observations on the proposed operation to the Commission.

Observations must reach the Commission not later than 10 days following the date of this publication. Observations can be sent to the Commission by fax (+32 22964301), by email to COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu or by post, under reference M.8215 — Apollo Management/Rackspace Hosting, to the following address: