The European Commission has cleared the proposed acquisition of American Life Insurance Company ("ALICO") and Delaware American Life Insurance Company ("DelAm"), by MetLife, Inc., (“MetLife”) and the proposed acquisition of Chloride, a UK-based electrical equipment supplier, by the U.S. company Emerson.

The Commission concluded that the transaction, of MetLife and Emerson, would not significantly impede effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it and has therefore approved the concentration.

ALICO is a provider of life, accident and health insurance, retirement planning, and wealth management solutions on a worldwide basis to individual customers and corporate clients and is also active in the global reinsurance market.

DelAm provides wealth management, retirement planning, life and health insurance services for commercial, institutional and individual customers but provides no services in the EU.

MetLife is a US-based company active worldwide in the life insurance, non-life insurance and reinsurance sectors and also provides financial products and services to individual and institutional customers.

The Commission’s examination of the deal showed that the horizontal overlaps between the activities of MetLife and those of Alico are essentially limited to life insurance products in only a few Member States, where combined market shares are relatively small and where the combined firm will continue to face several strong, effective competitors with significant market shares.

On the other hand, the merged entity would continue to face strong competition from a number of credible competitors in all national markets affected by the concentration. Therefore, the Commission concluded that the proposed transaction does not raise competition concerns.

The companies' activities overlap in the production and sale of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) products and related after-sales services. UPS products are used by a variety of customers ranging from small businesses to data-centres, hospitals and the industry sector to protect electronic applications from fluctuations or interruptions in their input power supply used.

Emerson is a global supplier of technological solutions for network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, storage solutions, motor technologies and the appliances sectors. Chloride is active in the production and sale of electrical equipment and accompanying software.

Chloride is an international provider of UPS systems and solutions; providing secure power and business continuity to customers worldwide.