The collection of mostly small and medium sized businesses is a hotchpotch of ventures and include design schools, schools, villas for hire in Goa and a country club in Gurgaon.
The latest trigger has been Future group's buyout talk with the retail unit of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's family-owned Heritage Foods
Ramping up e-commerce operations and going beyond its current strongholds are key challenges for the grocery chain in its battle with Mukesh Ambani's retail behemoth.
With an epic battle of billionaires for supremacy in one of the world's most prolific markets and a pandemic-propelled surge in online shopping in the background, India's nearly trillion-dollar retail market is hoping to touch 85 per cent of the pre-COVID business in the first half of the New Year. In a year when the COVID-19 carnage ripped apart the retail business, circa 2020 will best go down for the unravelling of the war between Jeff Bezos, the world's wealthiest man, and richest Indian Mukesh Ambani for pre-eminence in the booming market that is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. It all started with Ambani's Reliance Industries agreeing in August to buy assets of the nation's second-largest retailer for Rs 24,713 crore, just a year after Bezos' Amazon purchased an indirect stake in the indebted Future Retail.
The headline for corporate profit growth has been very encouraging in the July-September quarter (Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), with the combined net profit of listed companies up by 38 per cent year-on-year. However, the earnings distribution has been very lopsided, with most of the growth coming from public-sector oil-marketing companies (OMCs), banks, non-bank lenders, automobile (auto) companies, and cement producers. By comparison, companies from information technology services, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), retail, and consumer durables were disappointed, experiencing a sharp slowdown in net sales growth and a relatively muted increase in reported net profit.
While global competitors Amazon and Walmart are looking to explore B2B online in India, traditional Indian retailers like the Future group and Reliance Retail and e-commerce players such as Snapdeal and Flipkart have no immediate plans in this area.
CSD was created to provide easy access to quality products of daily use, at prices less than market rates to the soldiers, ex-servicemen and their families
Noel Tata likes to relax at his Alibaug beach home on weekends, but he is equally passionate about driving on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway at a speed of over 100 kilometres per hour.
Reliance Retail has tied up with Microsoft to launch the concept of connected homes.
Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co will invest Rs 6,247.5 crore to buy a 1.4 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm -- the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led firm's third such deal in less than two days.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm on Thursday raised Rs 9,555 crore from Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, taking total fundraise in the last two months to Rs 47,265 crore. PIF will take a 2.04 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the Indian firm said in a statement. The investment values RRVL, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.587 lakh crore.
The Raheja-owned Shoppers Stop, which was so far an up market department chain, is becoming a full service retailer soon. It is increasing its stake in the promoter group's hypermarket chain Hypercity from 19 per cent to 51 per cent.
Turbocharged with technology is becoming the Holy Grail of retail.
Radhakishan S Damani, investor and promoter of the D-Mart supermarket chain, has broken into the elite club of the top 100 global billionaires. Damani, who grew up in a single-room apartment in Mumbai, is now ranked 98th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $19.2 billion as his net worth. The index is a daily ranking of the world's richest people. The other Indians on the top 100 rich list ahead of Damani are Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Lakshmi Mittal.
The jury is out on whether India has a big enough audience willing to shell out big bucks for a piece of their favourite celebrity.
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, run by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, on Tuesday raised Rs 5,512.50 crore from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), taking the total fundraise to Rs 37,710 crore in less than four weeks.
Biyani's comments come on the heels of the Committee of Secretaries' recommendations for opening up the multi-brand retail sector to foreign investment, with a cap of 51 per cent and a minimum investment of $100 million by overseas players.
The infectious swine flu, is now impacting retail sales, with the Future Group subsidiary Pantaloon Retail witnessing as much as 20 per cent fall in sales, at its Pune and Mumbai stores, the regions which have come under severe grip of the pandemic.
Did top Indian business groups miss the e-commerce opportunity by focusing on replicating the Walmart model instead of following the Amazon model of online shopping?
This is the second investment by General Atlantic in a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, following a Rs 6,598.38 crore investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year.
Big retailers say the events work, but others aren't sure.
Aditya Birla Nuvo to buy controlling stake in Pantaloons Stores; Biyani gets Rs 1,600-cr boost; deal to create the country's largest fashion retailer.
Kishore Biyani, who owns the Future Group and its associated retail chains, is seeking support from rival retailers to challenge the might of Hindustan Unilever, Cadbury, Britannia and other confectionary, food and fast moving consumer goods companies (FMCG) to bargain for higher margins.
Maggi banned in Delhi for 15 days.
Kishore Biyani, founder and CEO of the Future Group, has emerged as the largest and perhaps the most successful retailer in India. Here he looks back at successes, failures and other defining moments in his entrepreneurial life.
Noel, Ratan Tata's half-brother and Mistry's brother-in-law, was a contender for the top position when Mistry was chosen as chairman in 2011.
Riding on this change in aspirations, V-Mart a value retail chain is growing close to 22 per cent year-on-year, and is aggressively looking to expand its footprint, with 60 new stores this year.
The store segmentation approach that Shoppers Stop is taking is intended to improve its hit rate at a time when local and international fashion retailers are crowding the market with new merchandise across price points.
Taking advantage of the absence of Nestl's Maggi noodles, Patanjali launched its own atta noodles last month.
Shoppers Stop is looking to open four new stores this year and plans to invest Rs 120 crore.
The retail king is back to what he does best: Expand. Future Group chairman Kishore Biyani is planning to add two Big Bazaar stores every month and open 15 hypermarkets over the next six months.
Reliance Retail follows Future Group in online foray
Shikhar Dhawan was a 'bit shocked' at his exclusion from India's Asian Games squad
ETAM, the French lingerie brand that has a joint venture with Kishore Biyani's Future Group, recently pulled out of Palm Beach Galleria mall in Navi Mumbai, together with six other retailers such as grocery chain Foodland Fresh and Manoranjan sarees.
Today's Writing Products is entering retail of office supplies and stationery products with 500 retail outlets.
Manoj Kumar, CEO, e-Zone and Electronics Bazaar, said,"The Mega e-Zone, measuring 25,000 sq ft and above in area, is being developed as a destination store for electronics purchase. The store will offer seamless space for brands to retail their own merchandise."
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
The company's first apparel store will be launched in Gurgaon in October with 22 in-house retail brands and a team of 76 designers tapping the men, women and kidswear segment.
When the 60,000 sq ft Brand Factory mart in Bangalore, the Future Group's factory-surplus format which stocks 145 brands across lifestyle categories, notched up its millionth customer in less-than-a-year, the company knew it was on to a good thing.
"Online portals are also bleeding heavily and have huge accumulated losses. There is pressure from investors to cut down on discounting."
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