JD.com gets a large scale at MediaMarkt-Saturn

In the future, the Chinese will be involved in Europe’s largest electronics retailer MediaMarkt-Saturn. As expected On a large scale with the MediaMarkt-Saturn mother Ceconomy one and wants to become the new majority shareholder there. The German subsidiary of the online retailer has presented a voluntary public takeover offer. According to this, the Ceconomy shareholders should receive 4.60 euros per share in cash, Ceconomy AG announced on Wednesday evening in a duty announcement in Düsseldorf. The offer corresponds to a company value of 4 billion euros. It is 43 percent above the average course of the past three months.

The four anchor shareholders Haniel, Beisheim, Freenet And Convergenta had already signed binding commitments for a total of around 32 percent of the share capital, it said. The largest shareholder to date, the Convergenta investment company of the Kellerhals family of founders, will keep a share of around 25.4 percent. There is no minimum wave of acceptance, emphasized Ceconomy boss Kai-Ulrich Deissner in front of journalists on Thursday. He expects the transaction to be completed in the first half of 2026.

Ceconomy: no operational terminations

“We enter into a partnership with JD.com to strengthen European trade, based on complementary strengths and common values,” said Deissner, according to the message. According to this, there should be no operational terminations or closures of locations as part of the transaction. “JD.com will also protect the existing company agreements, collective agreements and the existing company participation in the Supervisory Board. These commitments apply for three years.” JD.com also does not plan significant changes to the corporate structure or the brand architecture.

In the expectation of the takeover offer, the ceconomy share had recently increased to 4.35 euros per share. Since the beginning of the year, she had increased by more than 60 percent in the course of ongoing takeover fantasies. She continued to climb on Thursday. At noon it was around 1.8 percent at 4.43 euros.

Jd.com is great: $ 159 billion

JD.com with an annual turnover of almost $ 159 billion (2024) sees itself as “a worldwide leading technology and service company with a supply chain as the centerpiece and China’s largest retailer after sales”. The company has been listed at the US technology authority Nasdaq for more than ten years.

On the home market, the group, based in Beijing, is fighting with an intensive competition. Competitors such as Alibaba and Pinduoduo put JD.com under pressure. Finally, JD.com has also entered the Chinese market for food deliveries – and has thus entered another competitive field.

Observers assume that the entry is bought at high costs: restaurants, drivers and customers are lured with special conditions. The state supervisory authority in Beijing already warned of ruinous competition and asked all providers in spring to end their price wars. The overall weak consumption in China additionally tightens the situation. The well -known strengths of JD.com are your own logistics and technological competence.

Ceconomy employs around 50,000 people worldwide

According to the annual report, Ceconomy is present with more than 1,000 markets in eleven European countries, almost 400 of them are in Germany. In the recent full financial year 2023/24 (until the end of September), the company generated sales of 22.4 billion euros, a almost quarter of the online business. At the end of September 2024, the group employed around 50,000 people worldwide, around 17,000 of them in Germany.

The first Saturn branch was opened in Cologne in 1961, the first Media Markt in 1979 in Munich. The retail chain took over the competitor Saturn 1990. A few years later, Metro AG had The majority on both brands. The trading company Ceconomy, which includes the MediaMarktsaturn Retail Group today, was created in 2017 as a spin -off of the METRO retail group.