Sameday takes over Cargus. The Competition Council has 'competitive concerns' about the eMag platform and is asking Sameday for a series of commitments
The Competition Council communicated on Wednesday, at the request of HotNews.ro, what “competitive concerns” it formulated related to the takeover of the courier company Cargus by Sameday, a Romanian company owned by the eMag group. “Following the transaction, there are potential risks associated with belonging to the eMag group, in the sense that a future coercion of merchants affiliated with the platform, direct and/or indirect, by the group, to channel the use of the new entity predominantly for deliveries related to orders from the eMAG Marketplace platform, is not excluded,” the authority says.
This is just one of the “competitive concerns” that the president of the Competition Council, Bogdan Chirițoiu, announced on Monday that he had expressed to the Sameday company.
Other possible problems: Consolidation of the Sameday locker network or change of contractual conditions
In the context where there are customers who collaborate only or mainly with Cargus, the authority is afraid that “changing the contractual conditions/terminating the contracts with them (as a result of the completion of the transaction) in a short period of time, which does not allow them to renegotiate with the new entity or change the courier company, may have negative effects both on their activity and profitability, and on their customers”.
Another possible competitive issue identified is “the consolidation of the locker network at the Sameday level, following the transaction”. Such a situation “has the potential to adversely affect market competition and deter some competitors from investing/continuing to invest in such a network,” the competition authority says.
The Competition Council has also raised concerns about “Cargus' system of issuing AWBs for parcels”, which “at least in the case of certain online traders, contains the code relating to the product in the parcel”.
“A simple Internet search of that code provides information about the product (merchant and price). Therefore, the information on the AWBs issued by Cargus has the potential to cause harm to eMag's competitors (in the retail market and in the marketplace market), to the advantage of this company, which can obtain, among other things, information about its competitors regarding the type of products delivered / the delivery pattern of certain products by geographic areas and types of customers / the seasonality of the delivery of certain products, etc.”, a also signaled the authority to the Sameday company.
Sameday must make commitments that address these fears
In order to get approval to buy Cargus, Sameday will now have to submit several proposed commitments to the Competition Council, which will assess whether or not they address competition concerns.
The President of the Competition Council, Bogdan Chirițoiu, announced on Monday that the authority formulated a series of concerns regarding the acquisition of the courier company Cargus by Sameday, the Romanian company part of the eMAG group. “We'll see what kind of commitments Sameday/eMag will come up with,” said the authority's president.
Sameday's takeover of Cargus raises “a number of concerns”. What is the Competition Council waiting for now?
Details of Sameday's acquisition of Cargus
Sameday, the Romanian company part of the eMAG group, announced, in June last year, the acquisition of Cargus, the first private courier company in Romania, according to StartupCafe.ro. The information was first presented by ZF.
Cargus had a business of 567.6 million lei in 2024. Although it is one of the main players in the local courier market, the company had a slower growth than other firms in the field, recording an advance of 25% in the period 2019-2024, when Sameday had one of 620%.
With a business of 1.2 billion lei, Sameday aims with this acquisition to be the 1st place on the courier market, currently occupied by Fan Courier.
The transaction needs the approval of the Competition Council.
With 18 years of experience on the Romanian market, a team of over 5,000 employees and partners and an integrated digital infrastructure, Sameday operates in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria.
In 2017, eMAG (Dante International) took over 80% of the courier company Sameday, as was written on StartupCafe.ro at that time. Meanwhile, the online commerce giant has increased its stake in Sameday to 94%.
Cargus was founded in 1991 by Carmina and Augustin Pleșeaunder the name CARGUS International. The business was bought by the Germans from DHL in 2008, according to Ziare.com, then by Abris Capital Partners in 2012.
In 2015, Cargus merged with Urgent Curier, two years after the acquisition, under the name Urgent Cargus. In 2019, the investment fund Mid Europa Partners took over the company, a transaction that returned to the name of Cargus and as a result of which the company expanded its services, Startupcafe.ro also wrote.
