March 16 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian competition authority said it has cleared Nestle Bulgaria's proposed acquisition of local vitamins and food supplements wholesaler Iso-Plus BG from current Cyprus-registered owner Semento Ltd.
Under the deal, Nestle Bulgaria, part of the Swiss food and drink conglomerate, will purchase the entire capital of Iso-Plus BG, which consists of 10,000 shares of 1 lev in par value each, the Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) said in its decision published on Wednesday.
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The CPC found that the transaction will not result in horizontally overlapping markets in terms of products and geographical location. The combined market share in the wholesale nutritional distribution market of the two companies, which are not rivals, does not exceed the regulatory threshold of 25% and therefore poses no risk to competition, the CPC said.
The revenues of Nestle and Iso-Plus BG in Bulgaria for the financial year 2021 amounted to 293 million levs ($158.9 million/149.8 million euro) and 3.03 million levs respectively, CPC said.
With this transaction, Nestle Bulgaria is taking over the wholesale distribution for Greece, Bulgaria and Romania of the Solgar nutritional supplement manufactured by the Nestle group as well as the distribution units from the Iso-Plus group. The buyer expects synergies from the marketing and distribution of Solgar, by optimising expenses, achieving economies of scale and introducing new products. Iso-Plus BG distributes 371 products under the Solgar portfolio in Bulgaria.
Nestle acquired Solgar together with other nutritional supplements after purchasing the core brands of The Bountiful Company in 2021.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)