Swiss merger

Switzerland: Switzerland's two largest construction companies, Zschokke Holding and Batigroup Holding have merged. The new company Implenia Group, has pro forma sales of CHF 2.7 billion (US$ 2.08 billion) and employs 6500 people. The merger was announced last year, but was only approved by Switzerland's competition authority in March. Despite the size of the new group, the competition authority found it would not create an over-dominant player in the general building and tunnel construction markets due to fragmented nature of the industry.