AGROFERT is allowed to take over UNITED BAKERIES, but it has to sell off several facilities

2019-05-29
On 23 May 2019, the Office for the Protection of Competition issued a decision approving AGROFERT a.s. to take sole control over UB HOLDING a.s. and its subsidiary UNITED BAKERIES a.s., subject to a number of structural commitments which were accepted by the party to the proceedings in order to maintain effective competition. The decision already came into force.

The inputs received from third parties as well as information submitted by the merging undertakings during the administrative proceedings showed that the concentration raised serious concerns of significant distortion of competition resulting from the expansion of AGROFERT´s a.s. activities in the wholesale market of fresh bread and bread products, toast bread, fresh rolls and other fresh bakery products. In particular, the merged entity would gain a substantial market share in comparison to other competitors, resulting in the impossibility to exert sufficient competitive pressure on AGROFERT a.s.

In order to eliminate the Office´s concerns of distortion of competition, AGROFERT a.s. accepted structural commitments consisting of an obligation to sell off several production plants of the merging parties. The divestiture will result in substantial reduction of acquirer’s market shares in the markets affected by concentration and creation of a new undertaking or strengthening one of the existing competitors, which will create a real competitive pressure on merged entity and thereby the competition maintain effective.

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