The deal for the sale of the German supermarket chain Real has closed. As expected, the Russian buyer SCP has taken on 267 stores but it’s expected to close, transform or sell off most of them. It’s also been revealed that the former director of Lidl in Germany Bojan Luncer will be taking on management of the network. The German Press Agency is reporting that the buyer paid roughly €300m for the network. The European Commission has approved the transaction having found no major competition concerns. It’s believed that Alibaba and Schwarz-Gruppe are competing to take over the hypermarket’s online platform Real.de. Real is being sold by Metro, which itself is the target of a takeover attempt by a Czechslovak investment group. EP Global Commerce, owned by the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinský and the Slovak Patrik Tkač has taken a major shareholding in Metro but does not yet control the company.
