German retail chain REWE Group will take over Plus Discount in the Czech Republic

If anti-trust office UOHS okays the acquisition, the number of Czech outlets belonging to the REWE Group will be raised to some 500 and their annual turnover should move around Kc50bn.

 REWE Group will raise the number of its
discount shops in the Czech Republic to 317 after the purchase of the
146 discount shops Plus and will be the strongest player on the Czech
discount sales market.

Plus Discount has been active in the
Czech Republic since the year 1992, but since the new reorganisation
plan took effect at Tengelman, the group sold its shop outside of
Germany.

Tesco and Aldi were also among
companies interested to buy the retail chain. Experts have been
speculating on Aldi's arrival onto the Czech market for a long time
already.

Aldi, which has several thousand
outlets with food and consumer goods in Europe, will soon open its
first shops in Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. It has set up a
subsidiary in the Czech Republic.

Plus is the fifth retail chain to leave
the Czech market. Julius Meinl quit in 2005 and French Carrefour and
Germany's Edeka followed a year later.