The European Commission authorised, in August, a series of mergers:

- acquisition by Crédit Suisse and Barclays of Ionbond Group, and of SEB German retail banking business by Banco Santander

- supermarket Balkan joint venture between Carrefour and Marinopoulos

- creation of a joint venture by Bertelsmann and Holtzbrinck

- acquisition of Greenstar by Montagu and Global Infrastructure Partners

- acquisition of Sperian by Honeywell

- acquisition of Hypo Group Alpe Adria by the Republic of Austria

- acquisition of joint control by Corio of a shopping mall in Rome

- acquisition by Rettig of Nordkalk

- acquisition of Arriva by Deutsche Bahn

- part of the merger between Veolia and Transdev

- acquisition by Fortress Investment Group of the European residential mortgage business of Residential Capital LLC

- acquisition by Silver Lake and BC Partners of MultiPlan Holdings

- acquisition of BP France retail fuels business by Delek Group

- acquisition by EVN AG and Verbund AG of Energji Ashta Shpk

- acquisition by Nippon Telegraph-Telephone Corp. of Dimension Data Holdings

- acquisition by Triton of Tyco Waterworks Europe

- acquisition of Learnship Networks by Bertelsmann and Mediengruppe M. DuMont Schauberg

- acquisition of Puleva Dairy by Lactalis

- acquisition of Alico and DelAm by MetLife

- acquisition of Chloride by Emerson

- acquisition by EnBW of sole control over Prazska Energetika

The Commission also opened an investigation into the proposed merger between Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines.