By Laura Stevens in Atlanta, Maarten Van Tartwijk in Amsterdam and Tom Fairless in Brussels 

FedEx Corp. on Tuesday said it agreed to buy Dutch package-delivery company TNT Express NV for $4.8 billion in an all-cash deal, making an end run around rival United Parcel Service Inc. and positioning itself for a big boost from the booming European e-commerce business.

FedEx already has a sizable air-express delivery operation in Europe, but it lags behind in the ground-delivery business. Acquiring TNT would give it an established door-to-door rood network in Europe that connects more than 40 countries, saving the U.S.-based company the time and money required to build one from scratch.

"The combination of FedEx's existing network and TNT's broad ground-based network will offer tremendous opportunities for us as a result of enhanced coverage, a broader portfolio, obviously, better pickup and delivery cost; and, obviously we're very excited about those opportunities," said T. Michael Glenn, FedEx's executive vice president of market development, on a conference call with analysts.

But the FedEx-TNT deal is subject to approval by European Union regulators. In January 2013, EU regulators quashed an effort by UPS to acquire TNT for about $7 billion, unraveling an agreement that was about a year in the making. Then, as now, executives of both companies were sure that regulators would green-light the deal.

FedEx officials said on Tuesday's conference call that things are different this time around. FedEx has a smaller footprint in Europe than UPS and overlaps less with TNT's existing business. They said their merger would create a stronger competitor to UPS and Deutsche Post DHL Group's DHL unit, the market's dominant players.

"This deal is much better and simpler," compared with the UPS deal, TNT Chief Executive Tex Gunning said at an Amsterdam news conference. "There is little overlap; our businesses are complementary."

FedEx said it began negotiating with TNT six weeks ago, when the euro was falling toward 10-year lows against the dollar, increasing FedEx's buying power. At the same time, the European economy was starting to show signs of growth again, FedEx Chief Executive Frederick Smith said on the call.

The acquisition would give FedEx a bigger presence in the growing but tough-to-crack European delivery market, where the challenges include often- inaccessible apartment buildings in dense urban areas and where each country has its own rules and competitors.

UPS declined to comment on its competitor's move, citing company policy, but a spokesman said it constantly evaluates the marketplace for potential acquisitions and that it recently said it would be investing more than $1 billion to expand its European business organically. In 2012 it acquired Kiala, a Europe-based network of thousands of package pickup points at kiosks and other small stores.

When European regulators blocked UPS's acquisition of TNT two years ago, they said one of the reasons was that FedEx didn't exert much competitive pressure on the other three players in the market for international air-and-ground small package deliveries in Europe. That would seem to indicate that the latest merger is unlikely to face trouble in Brussels, antitrust experts said.

"FedEx was deemed a weaker competitor by the [European Commission] because of the lack of density and scale of its European network," said Mario Mariniello, a former EU antitrust official who now works for Brussels-based think tank Bruegel.

The FedEx-TNT merger "could have an easier" ride in the EU because combining the two "may not eliminate a strong competitive force in the market," said Mr. Mariniello. Regulators might also look favorably on positive effects on the network that could be passed on to customers in the form of better delivery services, he said.

Still, regulators might demand asset sales in narrowly defined markets in which they deemed that TNT and FedEx competed strongly against one another, he said. FedEx said Tuesday it would divest TNT's airline.

FedEx has made a series of smaller acquisitions in recent months. In January, the delivery giant paid $1.4 billion for Genco Distribution Systems Inc., a third-party logistics provider that specializes in the product-returns business. And in December, it said it acquired Bongo International, a provider of services for international e-commerce orders and shipments.

FedEx said that its deal to acquire TNT was approved by the Dutch company's board, and that the purchase price of EUR8 ($8.74) a share represents a premium of 33% to TNT's share price on April 2. Shares in TNT jumped 30% to EUR7.80 on the news, making it one of the biggest gainers in Europe.

FedEx executives said on the analyst call that the acquisition won't affect earnings until its fiscal year 2018, after which it "will be very accretive."

Dutch mail company PostNL NV, which has a 14.7% stake in TNT, said it supports the offer.

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