Danish Competition and Consumer Authority

06/27/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/27/2024 01:11

The Competition Council intervenes in OK’s acquisition of Coop Danmark

News
27. June 2024

The Competition Council intervenes in OK's acquisition of Coop Danmark

The Competition Council has approved OK a.m.b.a.'s acquisition of Coop Danmark A/S, including nearly 600 grocery stores and 160 service stations. To ensure that the merger does not impede competition, OK commits to divest and lease out a small number of service stations and stores.

Chairman of the Competition Council, Christian Schultz, says:

Our initial investigations indicated that the merger could potentially remove a significant competitive pressure on OK in six local areas, and thereby harm local competition. We did not investigate further as OK early in the process offered to divest and lease out service stations and stores in these areas, allowing us to approve the merger. It is important that mergers do not significantly impede competition. This merger could potentially have had a harmful effect in several local areas, which OK's commitments have mitigated. This benefits customers in the affected areas by ensuring local options.

The Competition Council has approved OK's acquisition of Coop Danmark. OK acquires, among other things, 598 grocery stores operating under the chain concepts Kvickly, Superbrugsen, Brugsen, and 365discount. Additionally, OK acquires more than 160 OK-stations that Coop Danmark owned and operated before the merger.

The approval follows OK's commitment to divest service stations in Høng, Otterup, and Gedser and to lease out OK Plus-stores in Sunds, Bording, and Elling in connection with the merger. Two of the OK Plus-stores to be leased out are already leased out today, but with the possibility for OK to terminate the agreement. With this commitment, OK agrees to enter into three new lease agreements, which, among other things, must be non-terminable by OK for ten years.

The Competition Council assesses that the divestment and leasing out will ensure that the merger does not significantly impede effective competition in the areas where the merger raised potential competitive concerns.

Since OK early in the process offered commitments to remove potential competitive concerns, it has not been necessary to further investigate the merger's impact on competition in the affected six areas.

For further information

Contact the Head of Communications at the Competition and Consumer Authority, Hanne Arentoft, at +45 41 71 50 98.