The merger of Franklin Web and AIW into the IVE Group may have been the deciding factor in rivals PMP and IPMG being allowed to get together.

In announcing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will not oppose the merger of the two heatset giants, chairman Rod Sims says it was "a finely balanced decision".

"While the ACCC considers that the merger is likely to lessen competition, we do not believe that it reaches the threshold of being a substantial lessening of competition," he added.

Sims says market conditions have changed since the ACCC opposed a proposed merger between PMP and IPMG in 2001, with significant reduction in demand for magazine printing and excess capacity in the industry.

He says the expansion of IVE "through acquisitions and winning major tenders" will enable it to constrain the merged PMP/IPMG business. "Other smaller printers and newspaper publishers also compete in the market." The ACCC says it will release a "public competition assessment" expanding its conclusions "in due course".

PMP prints catalogues and magazines on printing presses located at its print sites in Moorebank (NSW), Clayton (Vic), Wacol (Qld) and Bibra Lake (WA), while IPMG's printing businesses - Hannanprint, Offset Alpine, Bolton Print and Inprint - operate from Warwick Farm and Lidcombe (NSW), Noble Park (Vic) and Geebung and Cairns (Qld).