MILANO – Green light under EU Antitrust conditions for EssilorLuxottica’s purchase of GrandVision. The Brussels approval is conditional on full compliance with the package of commitments offered by EssilorLuxottica to preserve competition on the market. “Our in-depth investigation revealed that by gaining greater influence in the retail sector, EssilorLuxottica could have impaired the access of rival opticians to their own brand products in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. This would have led to fewer choices and higher prices for consumers in these countries “, explained the vice president of the EU Commission with responsibility for competition, Margrethe Vestager.
To allay the fears identified by the EU Antitrust, EssilorLuxottica offered to divest part of its retail operations in each of the countries where the Commission had concerns. In Italy, the group will divest a total of 174 stores, including the entire VistaSi chain of EssilorLuxottica and 72 stores of the ‘GrandVision by’ chain. The VistaSi brand will be transferred and the ‘GrandVision by’ stores will be renamed VistaSi or with the buyer’s brand.
The remedies proposed by the Italian-French multinational convinced the EU Antitrust, which concluded that the proposed transaction, subject to full compliance with the commitments, no longer raises competition problems. “The corrective measures proposed by EssilorLuxottica will avert” the risk of market distortion, “ensuring that competition at the retail level of optical products remains buoyant nationwide, to the benefit of customers in these countries,” Vestager explained. .
The reaction of the stock of lenses and frames was positive, which in Paris recorded an increase of 3.5% over 134 euros. The title of the international chain of optics stores based in the Netherlands was also positive, rising 1% on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to 26.4 euros.
Over a year ago Essilux had offered around 7 billion euros for 76.72% of GrandVision in the hands of the Hal fund, but then a legal tug-of-war was born focused above all on the Covid effects on the group’s financial statements that should be acquired by EssilorLuxottica .
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