Two have become one. What now for newlyweds Tesco and Booker?

Two have become one. What now for newlyweds Tesco and Booker?

So the doubters have been proved wrong again. Predictions that Tesco’s ambition to conquer the wholesale and out-of-home market would be stymied – first by the CMA and then by shareholders – never materialised.

Instead, two food and drink industry beasts will cement their merger on Monday, after today’s D-Day vote from shareholders saw an overwhelming majority back the £3.7bn merger with Booker.

In the end, it was never going to be those relatively few brave souls who braved the Arctic conditions to make it to the companies’ respective votes in London today who would decide the outcome.

Neither would it be those, relatively few, large shareholders who had sought to put a spanner in the works in the run up to today’s proceedings.

Despite all the noise (from some Booker hedge funders) that Tesco was underpaying and fears (from rebel Tesco shareholders) that they were paying too much, it was the silent majority of investors in the City that saw to a crushing victory for the merger.

In reality, the potential for growth into untapped areas, in such stark contrast to the grinding everyday battle of the supermarkets, was always going to be too much for shareholders to resist.

And for all those suggestions that the price might not be enough, there had seemed little in the way of jitters from those at the top.

With 83% of Booker shareholders and 85% of Tesco shareholders voting in favour of the merger, today’s result represents the icing on the cake for Tesco boss Dave Lewis and his soon-to-be UK number two Charles Wilson.

Once again they have outmanoeuvred and outgunned their opponents and now stand on the cusp of a new dawn for an even bigger but crucially more diverse empire.

Since the merger plans were revealed in January last year, Lewis and Wilson have seemingly played the perfect game.

What had seemed destined to be a rough ride at the hands of the Competition & Markets Authority, which most reckoned would lead at the very least to the enforced disposal of hundreds of Tesco stores, ended up with the plans being approved without a single store lost.

Despite opposition from a whole string of wholesale rivals threatening to lie in front of the tanks to stop the deal, Tesco and Booker have rolled on.

The megadeal has already sparked one of the most seismic periods of consolidation in retail and wholesale history, but now all eyes will be on what happens next.

With Wilson poised to take over the hot seat as UK CEO, how exactly will Booker and Tesco combine their stores, logistics and buying power to take the fight to the discounters, as they have publicly set out to do. And what will the implications be for their suppliers?

So far, there have been hints at what is to come, including Tesco’s plan to launch a discount competitor to Aldi and Lidl, plus the emergence of B2B fixtures in Tesco excess space to tap into Booker’s customers.

But probably only Lewis and Wilson know just what they have in store to shake up the industry even more.

For those shareholders who will be expecting payback from today’s vote of faith, there should be exciting times ahead even if the merger does represent something of an adventure into the unknown. But for many wholesalers and suppliers, today’s events will no doubt send as big a shiver down their spine as the visiting Siberian weather.