The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it has cleared the purchase of grocery wholesaler Nisa Retail by The Co-operative Group.
In a statement, the CMA said that after examining all the evidence, it determined that the proposed merger does not raise any competition concerns.
It noted that while Nisa and The Co-operative do not compete head-to-head, the fact that Nisa supplies more than 4,000 grocery stores around the UK, the CMA 'carefully considered' the potential impact of the merger on competition between stores.