REUTERS

The group's current brands, which also include Metro Cash & Carry, will be divided along two lines: one of the new companies will be a wholesale and food specialist group, while the second will be a consumer electronics business, according to a report.

The separation is expected to complete in the middle of next year.

Metro, which used to also own the well-known department store chain, Galeria Kaufhof, but sold it to Canada's Hudson's Bay last year, said the demerger would allow each business to grow quicker, according to The Financial Times.

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The wholesale and food business would be run by Metro's current chief executive, Olaf Koch, while it is proposed that Peter Hass, chief executive of Media-Saturn, takes the helm of the consumer electronics business.