Media-Saturn has adopted a very peculiar strategy to get web shop Redcoon’s losses to disappear. It filed a lawsuit to retroactively cancel its 2011 acquisition.
300 million euro claim
To get the acquisition labeled as unlawful, it invokes the antitrust legislation, saying it was breached on several occasions. For that reason, it now put forth a 300 million euro claim, which should cover its 125 million euro acquisition and the subsequent losses Redcoon suffered. A decision is expected to arrive before the end of the year.
Media-Saturn had high expectations when it bought Redcoon in 2011, but did not really enjoy its purchase. It halted sales in Denmark and France in 2014 and subsequently cancelled sales in the Benelux, Spain, Austria and Portugal in 2016.
At the time of the acquisition, Media-Saturn had no web shop of their own and the goal was to quickly double its online turnover. Later on, Media Markt and Saturn both launched their own web shops, making Redcoon surplus to requirements as both web shops have grown fast enough on their own. Media-Saturn achieved a 40 % online turnover growth last year.
