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Nupur \n Anand, Daily News & Analysis (DNA)<\/i><\/p>\n Nupur \n Anand, Daily News & Analysis (DNA)<\/i><\/p>\n
Mumbai, \n September 28, 2012<\/i><\/p>\n
Infiniti \n Retail, Tata Sons\u2019 wholly owned subsidiary that runs Croma \n consumer electronic goods chain, has acquired Australian major \n Woolworths Wholesale\u2019s Indian arm for around Rs 200 crore.<\/p>\n
The acquired company has been a supplier to Infiniti for six \n years.
\n <\/p>\n
Ajit Joshi, CEO of Infiniti Retail, said, \u201cOnce the deal \n is complete, we will merge Woolworths Wholesale India into Infiniti. \n We will also take their employees under our wing. With this buy, \n the total funding by Tata Sons in Infiniti has touched Rs 700 \n crore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The acquisition gives Infiniti full control over its back-end \n operations.<\/p>\n
The sale is part of Woolworths\u2019 global restructuring plan. \n <\/p>\n
Ramnik Narsey, chairman of its India unit, said. \u201cWith our \n decision to exit the consumer electronics specialty store sector \n in Australia and New Zealand, we have decided to sell the wholesale \n business in India to Infiniti.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, experts said there may be other reasons that may have \n brought about an end to this partnership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe partners had been bickering for a long time now and \n so this exit doesn\u2019t come as a total surprise,\u201d said \n an industry expert on the conditions of anonymity.<\/p>\n
Analysts also believe that armed with the knowledge about the \n Indian market, Woolworths may consider looking at entering India \n in the different segment or the front-end at a later stage. Apart \n from consumer electronics, the company is also present in other \n categories such asfood & grocery, liquor, petrol and general \n merchandise.<\/p>\n
Analysts said with government opening up the retail sector for \n foreign direct investment many earlier joint ventures and deals \n between Indian and foreign players are set to change as foreign \n companies now have more options.<\/p>\n
Devangshu Dutta CEO of retail consultancy firm Third Eyesight, \n said, \u201cIt is likely that in terms of single-brand retail \n the foreign partner may look at buying out their JV partners. \n Hectic activity in the retail segment in terms of new partnership \n and business formats is on the cards.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Infiniti Retail currently operates 73 Croma and 12 Croma Zip \n stores in India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nupur Anand, Daily News & Analysis (DNA) Mumbai, September 28, 2012 Infiniti Retail, Tata Sons\u2019 wholly owned subsidiary that runs Croma consumer electronic goods chain, has acquired Australian major Woolworths Wholesale\u2019s Indian arm for around Rs 200 crore. The acquired company has been a supplier to Infiniti for six years. Ajit Joshi, CEO of Infiniti […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-quotes"],"yoast_head":"\n