Sedmoi Kontinent, the country's sixth-biggest food retailer, bought back shares representing a 2.6 percent stake from owners who oppose merging a real estate unit with the rest of the company, the retailer said Monday.

Sedmoi Kontinent repurchased stock worth 1.36 billion rubles ($53 million), it said in a statement. The shares were bought back from investors who did not favor the food retailer's reorganization, spokesman Leonid Pirogov said, without elaborating.

Changes include combining United Retail Real Estate, Sedmoi Kontinent's property unit, with the rest of its activities, chief financial officer Alexander Rusnak said, Interfax reported.

U.S. buyout firm TPG was in talks with Sedmoi Kontinent shareholders Vladimir Gruzdev and Alexander Zanadvorov on buying a stake of about 37 percent and half of the retailer's real estate for as much as $1.2 billion, Kommersant reported last month.

Sedmoi Kontinent had 125 Russian and Belarussian outlets at the end of June, including six superstores.