Coop may take over Carrefour

 
Around six months after Coop announced its intention to purchase the twelve Carrefour supermarkets in Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Competition Commission (ComCo) has now approved the deal. According to the report in the Sonntagszeitung, the Competition Commission will officially announce its decision next Thursday. With the sale of the twelve stores and two unfinished projects in Chur and St. Gallen, the French Carrefour, number one in European food retailing, is withdrawing completely from the Swiss market (see: ). According to the Sonntagszeitung, the conditions attached to the approval of the sale are similar to those attached to the purchase of Denner by Migros. However, the central condition of the Denner sale, namely that the brand of the company sold is retained, cannot be implemented in the Coop-Carrefour deal, as it is not a purchase of a company but only the purchase of sales outlets.