Meghna Maiti, Financial Chronicle Mumbai,13 August 2012 Even as Pantaloon Retail India (PRIL) continues its expansion drive, post its deal to sell controlling stake in the Pantaloons format to the AV Birla group, Kishore Biyani CEO at Future group has embarked on a restructuring exercise to ride through the downturn. While PRIL increased its space under management by 0.55 million square feet of retail space, during the quarter ending June, compared with the year-ago period, the flagship of India’s largest listed organised retailer has shut down two stores of its electronics retail chain eZone and 10 stores of its core…
Meghna Maiti, Financial Chronicle Mumbai, 2 August 2012 If you are worried about the long queues at your neighbourhood Big Bazaar during the much-awaited Independence Day sale, help is at hand. For the first time the supermarket chain, is now coming to a computer screen across the commercial capital of Mumbai with the Biyani-led venture starting an e-tailing offering bigbazaar.com. Customers who purchase goods through the site are promised delivery at their homes within three business days for a convenience charge of Rs 50 per order if the value is under Rs 500. “We just launched the e-tailing venture and…
Prashant Mahesh, The Economic Times Mumbai, 2 August 2012 People may not love the rains, but monsoon sales are the favourite with most of them. It has almost become an annual ritual with people to shop for their favourite brands during the sale period that are otherwise too expensive to purchase. And the retailers are more than happy to cash in on this consumer frenzy. Yes, it's once again that time of the season to go on a shopping spree and pick up stuff at discounts varying from 10 to 90% on your favourite products... be it apparel, shoes, bags…
(Published in "BusinessWorld SME Handbook 2012-13", released on Oct. 29, 2012 in New Delhi, and "Indian Management", the journal of the All India Management Association in January 2013, published by Business Standard.) There are parallels between Christmas and the growth of modern retail. At Christmas much of the attention is fixed on Santa Claus, while the elves labouring away behind the scenes barely get any air-time. So also in the retail business, the focus very much is on the retailer; the bigger the better. The Indian retail sector’s sales are estimated at about Rs. 26 lakh crores. Of this, more…
Vishal Krishna BusinessWorld, 28 July 2012 When you have Rs 7,846 crore in debt, that takes centrestage and everything else is pushed to the sidelines. And that is exactly what was happening at Kishore Biyani’s Future Group over the past few years. However, after selling a majority stake in Pantaloon Retail to the Aditya Birla Group, managing a private placement with Bennett, Coleman & Company (BCCL), and getting private equity giant Warburg Pincus to acquire a majority stake in Future Capital Holdings (FCH) resulted in Biyani raising nearly Rs 2,500 crore in the last couple of months. Further, with Warburg…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
