Supermarket giant Tesco is set to take over 11 Czech hypermarkets owned by French counterpart Carrefour SA, a Tesco spokesperson told the CTK news agency.
This is part of a much wider reshaping of their global activities announced last year.
Carrefour was due to swap its Czech hypermarkets and four in neighbouring Slovakia with six completed Tesco hypermarkets in Taiwan and two projected others.
But this deal has been suspended for several months awaiting the final approval of the overall deal by the Slovak anti-monopoly office.
The British and French retailers have decided to proceed with the Czech side of the Carrefour swap, pending the Slovak decision, according to Jana Matouskova, a spokesperson for Tesco in the Czech Republic.
Jana Havlickova, Carrefour’s regional spokesperson, says that she cannot confirm or deny the information.
The European Commission’s competition office cleared the Czech side of the supermarket swap in December, but sent the remaining part of the dossier for examination by the Slovak competition office.
Major European supermarket chains, including Ahold, Metro, Rewe, Schwarz and Delhaize, are already present on the Czech market and it is one of the most competitive on the continent.
