Real market
Photo:
Oliver Berg / dpa
The Federal Cartel Office has allowed Germany's largest grocer, Edeka, to take over up to 51 Real branches.
However, due to competition law concerns, the retail giant has to rent partial areas at six locations to competitors for at least ten years or close its own locations beforehand.
Originally, Edeka even wanted to take over up to 72 branches from Real owner SCP.
At 21 locations, however, the trading giant's plans failed due to competition law concerns from the cartel office.
"We have to ensure that consumers will be able to choose between different food retailers in the future," said the President of the Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt.
"This choice creates competitive pressure on the providers and thus ensures better prices, selection and quality."
The Bundeskartellamt also worried about Edeka's purchasing power.
The conditional approval was only possible because SCP had undertaken to sell Real locations with a sales volume of around 430 million euros to medium-sized grocery retailers, stressed Mundt.
This meant that alternative sales channels were retained for the manufacturers.
The SCP Group belongs to the corporate empire of the Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov and had acquired the ailing hypermarket chain Real with its around 270 stores from Metro last year.
The plan is to smash them and resell them.
Icon: The mirror
mjm / dpa
