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Tving Corp. and KT’s Seezn over-the-top (OTT) platform announced their plans to merge in July and it took more than three months before South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission released its decision on whether to give the merger and acquisition (M&A) a go-ahead or not.
According to Korea Joongang Daily, the FTC finally gave its seal of approval for Tving and Seezn to continue with their merger deal on Monday, Oct. 31. Once the transaction is completed, the companies will form the second-largest streaming service provider in the country, next to the US-based Netflix.
The FTC explained the reason for its approval by saying, "We have concluded that the merger will not limit competition in the market for the supply of content to over-the-top platforms."
This means the antitrust regulator did not find any reason or issue in case Tving and Seezn came together to offer services. The officials believe the merger is not likely to use its position to increase subscription fees due to tight competition since the unified share is not even half of the Netflix share. KT’s Seezn is joining CJ ENM’s Tving at a ratio of 1 to 1.5737519.
In any case, CJ ENM owned 57% of Tving while Seezn is wholly owned by KT Studio Genie. It was noted that this is the latter’s very first M&A since it was first launched in 2019 when KT Telecom, the country’s second-largest mobile carrier, decided to enter and compete in the global OTT market.
In the early announcement of Tving and Seezn’s merger, the streaming service providers said that the goal of the merger was to bolster and broaden their platforms’ presence in both the local and global markets. To achieve this, they will use their respective market competitiveness to form a synergy between telecommunications and content creation.
They added, “Through the merger, TVING will strengthen its technology and service quality by bringing together content creation and OTT technology with KT’s business structure. The two companies plan to complete the merger by Dec. 1.”
