March 7 (SeeNews) - Serbia's competition regulator said it approved the acquisition of a majority stake in the country's biggest sugar producer Sunoko by Austria's food group Agrana.
The transaction will cause no significant structural alterations on the Serbian sugar beet production, buy-up, processing and wholesale markets, the country's anti-trust regulator said in a statement on Monday.
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In Serbia, Agrana is present solely in the sugar wholesale market segment but sells extremely small quantities, the authority said.
Agrana agreed to buy a majority stake in Sunoko from Serbian agro-industrial conglomerate MK Group in June. Back then, MK Group said that the partnership will help Serbian producers of sugar beet boost their yields, as well as raise the output and exports of Sunoko's sugar factories.
Sunoko has three plants - in Kovacica, Vrbas and Pecinci - all located in Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina. It is the largest sugar beet purchaser and sugar producer in Southeastern Europe (SEE) with an annual output of about 300,000 tonnes of sugar.
Vienna-based Agrana, in which Germany's Suedzucker holds a 41.9% stake, produces sugar, starch, fruit preparation, juice concentrate and ethanol fuel. In the sugar segment, the company has operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, besides Austria, claiming to be a leading supplier of sugar and isoglucose in central and eastern Europe.