French group Carrefour will be able to keep the Billa brand in Romania for another 12 months, according to the deal with German group Rewe through which the French retailer acquired 86 Billa supermarkets.

The Billa stores will be rebranded and will operate under the Market brand in one year. The Market brand is used by Carrefour for its supermarket division.

The Competition Council has recently approved the takeover of the Billa stores by the French retailer.

At the end of December 2015, Carrefour announced that it bought Billa stores in Romania with almost EUR 100 million. This was the third largest deal in the Romanian retail after the Auchan-Real deal, worth over EUR 250 million, and the Lidl-Plus Discount transactions, of over EUR 200 million.

editor@romania-insider.com