Brussels, 08/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The planned purchase of all shares in the French perfumer Marionnaud by AS Watson, which belongs to the Hong-Kong based group Hutchison Whampoa Limited has been approved by the Commission. Marionnaud Parfumeries operated in retail sales of luxury perfumes and cosmetics and AS Watson runs retail chains for food and household products, health and beauty products and consumer electronic goods in the USA and Asia. Within the EU, the group is mainly active in health and beauty products as well as retail sales of perfumes and cosmetics in the Benelux countries through the brand ICI Paris XL. The majority of Marionnaud retail outlets are located in France and the activities of the two parties should not overlap geographically, the Commission observes, noting nonetheless that the companies both operate on the Czech, Polish and Hungarian markets for lower range health and beauty products. There however, it does not consider that the market shares accumulated at national level will engender a risk to competition and it authorised the operation, valued at between 800 and 900 million euros.