The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has given the green light for the Co-operative Group’s (Co-op’s) acquisition of Somerfield to go ahead.
OFT chief executive John Fingleton said the deal will not be referred to the Competition Commission after the Co-op agreed to a divestment package and it was happy with the plan.
Following competition concerns raised at a local level, the OFT had said the Co-op must sell some stores to its rivals. 133 will be sold under the agreement.
Fingleton said: “This divestment package ensures that consumers will continue to enjoy strong competition in local grocery markets across the UK, while at the same time allowing a strategically important and likely pro-competitive merger in the UK grocery sector to go ahead.”
The Co-op said it has already found buyers for 90 stores, including 24 it had to sell upfront before a deal could be completed.
Seven stores have been sold to Tesco, 13 to Waitrose, six to Musgraves and six to Spar. 34 have been sold to Morrisons.
A spokesman for the Co-op said: “There is considerable interest in the stores that the OFT has required us to sell.”
It is likely that the acquisition will be completed at the beginning of March.
Somerfield posted like-for-like sales growth of 5.4% in the six months to 8 November 2008, it reported before Christmas.
