Pub company Enterprise Inns has been given clearance by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to take control of the Unique Pub Company.
The £609m deal will make Enterprise the largest pub company in the UK, and, once its acquisition of the 4,000-strong chain is complete, means it will have an estate of 9,000 leased and tenanted pubs.
In a short statement to the London Stock Exchange, the OFT said simply that it had decided not to refer the acquisition to the Competition Commission for further investigation.
Enterprise had previously said it would be selling off a number of pubs after the deal is completed, to make sure it does not have more than a quarter of the pubs in any one local area.
by Nic Paton
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