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The Federal Cartel Office is slowing down the planned break-up of the Real hypermarket chain.

After the competition watchdogs recently put a stop to the proposed takeover of 101 branches by competitor Kaufland and are now grappling with concession offers from the two contractual partners, the deadline for examining the takeover of up to 72 stores by Germany's largest grocer Edeka is now being extended - and in agreement with the companies involved, as it is called.

The office now has until January 21st next year to decide on the case.

This emerges from the current list of the so-called main test procedures of the Bonn authority.

"The process is very complex," explains a spokesman.

Investigations have been carried out since August, and a decision was previously planned for December 21.

The office does not want to see the extension of the deadline as an indication.

And in fact there was no announcement of the first tendencies - unlike a week earlier in the Kaufland case, which, like the discounter Lidl, belongs to the Schwarz Group.

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At that time, the authority had publicly reported concerns: "According to a preliminary assessment and detailed analysis, the Bundeskartellamt sees a significant impediment to effective competition in nine regional sales markets due to the acquisition of the Real locations there by the Schwarz Group." This automatically extended the inspection period, As of December 30th.

This is the second time that the period has been extended.

Parties rely on a negotiated solution

Specifically, the competition watchdogs are concerned with negotiating power with suppliers in 17 different product groups and also with the relationship to medium-sized dealers in the vicinity of the branches being courted.

Kaufland and the new Real owner SCP, who had taken over the dealer from the Metro group only a few months ago, are now relying on a negotiated solution.

The two companies have already made suggestions to the Cartel Office.

And investor SCP is optimistic.

The talks with the cartel office are constructive, they say.

However, neither side wants to give details.

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Nevertheless, some smaller retailers can now apparently have legitimate hopes of getting attractive Real locations.

In any case, the Cartel Office emphasizes "special importance for the position of medium-sized dealers and their participation in the sale of the Real locations".

The Saarland supermarket chain Globus, for example, is showing interest, which currently operates almost 50 stores in its home state as well as in Rhineland-Palatinate, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and in eastern Germany and reported sales in the 2019/2020 financial year ended at the end of June of almost eight billion euros, of which 3.4 billion in German hypermarkets.

Quite a lot who gets the contract

Globus has already positioned itself very clearly.

"Slamming the Real markets almost exclusively to Edeka and Kaufland would further strengthen the market power of these chains on the supply and procurement market and thus threaten the diversity of trade in Germany," said a spokeswoman.

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This announcement should be heard in the Cartel Office.

After all, Globus is one of the so-called invited market participants in the ongoing test procedures.

According to reports, there are also other smaller dealers who are interested in Real locations.

Names such as Tegut or Kaes, the parent company of the V-markets that are only widespread in southern Germany, have already fallen.

It is quite important who wins the contract for the Real branches for sale.

Because the consolidation in the German food retail industry is already well advanced.

The multi-billion market is dominated by four industry giants: Edeka, which also includes Netto, Rewe with the formats Rewe and Penny, the Schwarz Group with Kaufland and Lidl, and Aldi.

Now this market is also losing real, at least to a large extent.

SCP, a Luxembourg company with offices in London under the control of the Russian investor Sistema, has taken over 279 branches from Metro, where Real had previously been a loss-making problem child for many years.

SCP intends to continue operating around 50 of these locations under the name Real for two years, around 30 stores will be closed and the rest will be sold.

This is dragging on for a few more weeks.

It cannot be ruled out that there will be further postponements.

"The deadline can be extended again and again," says the Cartel Office, either by a month or longer.