CHINESE internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd is having to offer concessions in a plan to merge the country’s top two videogame live-streaming sites in order to resolve antitrust concerns, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
But with regulators concerned the deal would give Tencent overwhelming dominance, it’s willing to settle for approval subject to conditions, according to the people, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.Tencent, Huya, DouYu and SAMR did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
A separate person with direct knowledge of the deal said the antitrust review of the merger had been an “elongated process”, but nothing concrete had been communicated from the regulator to the companies regarding potential concessions. “Tencent has a dominant position in game publishing in China, while the two live-streaming sites combined would be tantamount to gargantuan in the business,“ one of the people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.