Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has given Maxima Grupe consent for the acquisition of Emperia Holding S.A., which controls the Polish retail chain Stokrotka. Maxima Grupe has submitted tender offer on Warsaw Stock Exchange concerning the acquisition of 100 per cent of the said company’s shares. The period set for the acquisition is until 12^th of April.

“The consent of Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection is an important step for the acquisition of the shares issued by Emperia Holding S.A. We hope that the next stage will also be smooth and we will successfully close the tender offer,” said the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Maxima Grupe.

As it was announced earlier, Maxima Grupe offers PLN 100 per one share issued by Emperia Holding S.A. The total price for the issued shares amounts to PLN 1.192 billion (around EUR 283 million). The bid also includes the provision stating that Maxima Grupė may refuse buying the shares if the bid is accepted by less than 66 per cent of the company’s shareholders or other contractual terms and conditions are not met.

In Poland, the retail chain Stokrotka has 436 stores and occupies around 20 percent of the market of the stores based near residential houses. The company has around 8.2 thousand employees; in 2016, its turnover amounted to EUR 570 million.

Lithuanian holding Maxima Grupe controls retail chains under brands Maxima (in Baltics states), Aldik (in Poland), T-Market (in Bulgaria) and an electronic online shop of food and daily consumer goods Barbora.