FTC v Henkel and Liquid Nails

Case Study

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against Henkel AG & Co. KGaA and its subsidiaries (collectively known as "Henkel") on December 15, 2025, over their plans to buy A-Paint Topco, Inc. The main worry is that both companies make construction adhesives. Henkel makes glues with the Loctite name, and A-Paint makes glues with the Liquid Nails name. The goal of this post is to look at the complaint and then run simulations of the proposed merger to see how it might affect prices. Please keep in mind that the information we used in our simulations comes from publicly available data and some assumptions.