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The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said on Thursday it has approved Amazon's proposal to acquire Prione Business Services Private Limited, which runs Cloudtail, one of the largest online marketplaces in India.
"The proposed combination pertains to the proposed acquisition of 76 per cent of the equity shares of Prione Business Services Private Limited (Target) by Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources Private Limited (Acquirer)," CCI said in a statement. Prione Business Services has a wholly-owned subsidiary Cloudtail India Private Limited (CT), which is engaged in B2C retail business in India, and currently offers for sale products to customers on the online marketplace, www.amazon.in operated by Amazon Seller Services Private Limited (Amazon Marketplace). Cloudtail is also engaged in wholesale (B2B) trading of products through online and offline channels. The acquirer is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (ACI). ACI is the ultimate parent entity of the Amazon group. The Acquirer does not undertake any business activity in India. However, ACI, the ultimate parent company of the Acquirer, has certain indirect subsidiaries either registered in India or having business operations in India. "Target is an Indian owned and controlled company and is controlled by Hober Mallow Trust (Hober Mallow). 76 per cent of the share capital of the target is held by Hober Mallow," CCI said. Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources Private Limited already owns 23 per cent of the share capital of Prione Business Services. The remaining one per cent of the equity stake in Prione Business Services is owned by Amazon Eurasia Holdings. Prione Business Services offers a variety of services tailored to help small and medium businesses run their online businesses efficiently, inter alia, including digital cataloguing, advertising, training and consulting, advisory and value-added services, adopting digital payments, and other overall enablement services. (ANI)
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