REWE can acquire shares in beverage wholesaler Trinks

Following intensive investigations, the Bundeskartellamt has cleared, in the first phase of merger control, the planned acquisition by REWE of 50 per cent of the shares in both Trinks GmbH, Hennef, and Trinks Süd GmbH, Fürstenfeldbruck.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “We have examined the project in great detail. Our examination focused on the question whether REWE’s shareholding in Trinks, which is one of the leading beverage wholesalers for food retailers, would potentially lead to market foreclosure effects. Having examined the merger, we have no serious competition concerns about the project. Significant foreclosure effects are neither imminent with regard to other beverage wholesalers’ access to REWE as a customer, nor with regard to other food retailers’ access to Trinks’ services.”

Trinks GmbH and Trinks Süd GmbH (Trinks) focus on supplying food retailers with alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in returnable bottles and crates. Their activities also include returning and sorting the empty packs. Together the two target companies have 16 storage and logistics facilities all over Germany. The companies are currently held by Bitburger Braugruppe, Krombacher Brauerei and the Warsteiner group, which will together keep the same amount of shares as REWE will hold in future. The REWE group is one of Germany’s leading food retailers.

The Bundeskartellamt’s investigation focused on whether the acquisition would lead to significant foreclosure effects: On the one hand, foreclosure effects could occur with regard to other beverage wholesalers’ access to REWE as a customer, and on the other, with regard to the access of REWE’s competitors to the services of Trinks. Such effects are not expected, however.

Trinks has many competitors in beverage wholesale. Major competitors include in particular Deutsche Getränke-Logistik, a joint venture of Radeberger Gruppe KG and Brauerei Veltins, and PROFI System-Getränke-Logistik, which is a cooperation of regional beverage wholesalers. What is more, there is a number of regional beverage wholesalers which supply food retailers to a considerable extent in their respective regional markets. In any case, all competitors together give REWE's competitors sufficient alternatives to Trinks to choose from. Market participants also expect a demand shift with regard to services offered by beverage wholesalers. Therefore, it is not likely that other beverage wholesalers will be permanently weakened by the shift of REWE’s volumes to Trinks.

The effects on competition due to foreclosure will also be limited because beverage manufacturers can also supply retailers directly. The authority found that in some cases direct supply is already widely used, especially at the regional level. The fact that EDEKA, which is one of REWE’s major competitors, is currently developing and in some cases already operating its own beverage logistics in some parts of Germany also has to be taken into account. And finally, foreclosing the retail market would run contrary to the interests of Trinks’ other shareholders.

In conclusion, the acquisition is not expected to significantly impede effective competition. Furthermore, the extent to which REWE gains access to information on its competitors after acquiring the shares in Trinks does not raise any competition concerns, either.