FAS gives X5 Retail go-ahead to acquire three Kopeika subsidiaries
MOSCOW. Sept 8 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has approved X5 Retail Group's application for permission to acquire three of the retailer Kopeika's subsidiaries, the FAS has announced.
Permission to acquire the rights that would allow the determination of how Nizhny Novgorod-based LLC Proviant, CJSC Develop Group, and LLC Kopeika Development are to operate was dated August 9, the FAS said.
However, no approval has yet been given to X5's application to purchase Kopeika itself. At the end of August, the FAS decided to extend its consideration another two months so it could make sure Russian law On Trade, where it restricts any retailer's share to 25% of the market in any of the country's constituent regions, would not be violated.
Comments from the FAS have been unobtainable thus far.
Kopeika is one of the five largest Russian retail chains, with more than 520 stores at the end of 2009. Company sales revenues last year came to roughly 56 billion rubles. It is owned by Nikolai Tsvetkov, the main shareholder at the financial company Uralsib .