Wolt Must Sell Wolt Market: The Story Behind the Forced Divestiture

By מערכת סופרקליר · 2026-07-13 · 4 min read

₪60M — Wolt Market's estimated annual loss, despite over ₪650 million in yearly revenue — per a Globes report, April 2026

If you've ever ordered your groceries through the Wolt app, you may have noticed that alongside Shufersal, Rami Levy and Carrefour, there's also "Wolt Market" — supermarket branches the company runs itself. The same company, on the same app, acting as both host and competitor. Israel's Competition Authority decided that was too much of a conflict — and right now, in the middle of 2026, a heated sale race is playing out behind the scenes over one of the most talked-about assets in Israeli retail.

When the platform is also the competitor

Wolt isn't just a delivery leader — it runs a platform that hosts entire food and pharma retail chains, while simultaneously running "Wolt Market," a competing grocery arm on that same app. According to N12, the Competition Authority commissioner declined to extend Wolt's exemption from a restrictive-arrangement approval for this setup, out of concern for harm to competition — both within the platform and against it. TheMarker described it as a forced parting from an activity generating Wolt hundreds of millions of shekels a year in Israel.

The logic is simple: when the same company runs "the marketplace" and also sells inside it, it gets access to information about what's selling well among competitors, which areas are in demand, and what consumers want — data no other player in the market can see. At the same time, Wolt can favor itself within the app it controls. The result: Wolt Market needs to change hands.

One company acting as both the arena and one of the traders in it — that's exactly the problem the Competition Authority set out to dismantle.

The numbers behind the sale

Here's the surprising part: Wolt Market isn't necessarily the prize everyone imagined. According to a Goldman Sachs investor presentation accompanying the sale process, whose figures were reported by Globes, Wolt's fast grocery-delivery service brought in more than ₪650 million in 2025. But Globes also reported that the business is losing money — about ₪60 million a year, nearly a tenth of its turnover, largely due to the high operating costs of fast grocery delivery.

That's not a trivial starting point for a would-be buyer: this is a large business, but not a profitable one — and whoever buys it will need a real plan to turn it around, not just cash on hand.

Who even wants to buy a money-losing business?

Despite the losses, the line is long. According to N12, more than 20 different parties expressed initial interest in acquiring Wolt Market — food and pharma retailers, distribution and logistics companies, and also investment funds and banks. The process, managed by Goldman Sachs, is expected to close by late 2026 or early 2027.

At the advanced stage, according to Globes, a handful of final candidates remain — among them the Apex Partners fund together with Uri Max, the Paz Group, the founders of the Good Pharm chain, and a private fund led by Tor Rosenberg. Each was presented with a business plan promising a move to profitability of ₪10–35 million within less than a year of acquisition — a target that would require an entirely different way of running the business than today's. Victory, seen as a serious candidate in the early stages, ultimately chose to drop out of the race, according to ice.co.il.

Why this should matter to you, the shopper

This isn't just a story about money and dealmakers. Wolt Market has become a genuinely significant player in digital grocery shopping in recent years: according to Calcalist, thanks to the exemption it held until now, more than half of all supermarket orders placed through Wolt came from Wolt Market itself — not from the competing chains listed on the same app. Questions have also been raised about the service itself — Ynet reported cases where price-controlled products were sold on Wolt Market above their legal ceiling.

That's exactly why the question "who's actually cheaper" shouldn't depend on whoever is most convenient to order from in an app. Wolt is one of the chains Superclear tracks, alongside all 34 other players in the market — and whoever ends up buying Wolt Market won't change that: the real price on the shelf is what counts, not the name on the app.

The process is still far from over. Until a buyer is found, Wolt keeps running Wolt Market as usual, but under a restriction on opening new branches — a sign that even the regulator knows this story isn't finished yet.

Sources