The Bundeskartellamt has given the green light to Thalia Bücher GmbH's acquisition of assets from the insolvent buecher.de GmbH & Co. KG. Thalia, Germany's largest brick-and-mortar book retailer, will take over buecher.de's business operations, customer relationships, brands, and domains.

The competition authority focused on the book procurement market, where Thalia holds a significant position. Despite concerns about Thalia's buyer power over publishers and wholesalers, the merger was cleared in the first phase due to buecher.de's limited impact on Thalia's procurement volume and the presence of other strong buyers like Amazon.

Customers in both brick-and-mortar and online book retail will still have ample alternatives post-merger, including independent bookshops, other bookstore chains, and online retailers. Thalia's physical store presence across Germany gives it a unique advantage over online giants like Amazon, particularly in promoting new book releases and negotiating with suppliers.