It seems that the staid British National Archives is coming forward in support of the sale of Friends Reunited to Brightsolid. The sale has been somewhat in doubt, as the “Competition Commission” has expressed reluctance to allowing the sale to go through. It’s looks like the principle reason for the support is that the Archives would like to make sure that Ancestry.co.uk has competition. Following is an excerpt from an article in the January 4, 2010 edition of the Financial Times.
The takeover of Friends Reunited, currently facing regulatory scrutiny, has found support from an unlikely quarter – the National Archives.
The government’s official archive rarely, if ever, intervenes in competition inquiries but it has backed the proposed sale of the social networking site operator – and its valuable genealogy subsidiary, Genes Reunited – to create a bigger rival to a larger American competitor. ITV has agreed to sell Friends Reunited to Brightsolid, a web company owned by DC Thomson, the Scottish publisher.
The National Archives said in a submission to the Competition Commission’s investigation into the deal that a combination of Genes Reunited with Brightsolid’s Find My Past site would create “more robust and serious competition” to Ancestry.com, the US-based market leader.
If the merger were blocked, “there is unlikely to be a realistic alternative bid from any existing genealogy company”.
“The reduction in the number of players would weaken the competitive scene, leaving consumers with less choice of product and pricing,” it said.
The National Archives said blocking the merger would also result in consumers having less choice in family history data and documents, and the rate of market innovation would slow.
