Romania’s Competition Council has authorised the takeover of the country’s largest supermarket chain Profi Rom Food by MEP Retail Investments.
The antitrust body found that the merger does not raise significant obstacles to competition in the Romanian market or in a significant part of it.
Profi Rom Food focusses on food, beverage and tobacco retail in non-specialised stores (super markets) and was formerly owned by Polish Enterprise Fund VI.
Profi has a presence in almost 250 cities, smaller towns and villages. It operates two store formats in urban areas (Standard and City) and recently developed a successful format for rural parts of the country (Loco).
It operates almost 500 stores and its estimated sales for 2016 amounted to €800 million.
MEP Retail Investments is part of private investment group Mid Europa Partners that has already invested in successful retail operations in Poland (Zabska Polska and Allegro).
The deal, announced in November 2016, is the largest in Romania’s retail sector.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up for ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
