Linas Agro Group receives competition clearance for acquiring the agriculture giant Kauno grūdai

Our Corporate team has successfully assisted AB Linas Agro Group in receiving competition clearance in Lithuania without any conditions imposed by the authority in the acquisition of AB Kauno grūdai group of companies.

We estimate that this could be one of the biggest if not the biggest merger control case in Lithuanian competition law history, as the merger notification is almost 2000 pages long without annexes, which took more than a year. We believe that based on revenue, it is the biggest cleared merger in the history of the Lithuanian Competition Council. The merger notification covered more than 70 relevant markets, 20 of which were considered as affected. The relevant markets and affected markets count could increase significantly if we would determine the markets even narrower. Furthermore, we have as well led this transaction to the obtainment of merger clearances in Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Russia. We have also evaluated various international merger control thresholds to determine which jurisdictions require notification of the transaction.

The acquisition will form an agriculture market’s leader, the revenue of which will exceed 1 billion, making it one of the top 5 Lithuanian companies’ groups by revenue. After the transaction AB Linas Agro Group will employ more than 6’000 employees, making it the second-largest employer in Lithuania. The acquirer and the target will form a group that will control more than 110 companies established over more than 8 countries.