IndiaRetailBiz

The Aditya Birla Retail, a part of the Kumarmangalam Birla controlled, A V Birla group, which had acquired Hyderabad-based Trinethra supermarkets chain, towards the end of 2006, is planning to aggressively expand the network of its supermarkets retail chain, called ‘More,’ across the country.

The group has decided to invest about $2 to $2.5 billion (Rs. 8,000-10,000 crore) in retail operations over the next three years. This would result in Birla’s retailing footprint scaling up to 1,500 supermarkets and about 100 hypermarkets.

Before the end of this fiscal (March, 2008), ‘More’ retail chain would have set up 500 supermarket stores including the stores belonging to erstwhile Trinethra chain. Trinethra group had three chains operating across all the states within the South zone under the brand names of ‘Trinethra,’ ‘Fabmall,’ and ‘Fabcity.’

BY March 2008, ‘More’ would also have two hypermarkets including the one known as Fabcity located in Mysore. This hypermarket was acquired as a part of the Trinethra deal. Another hypermarket measuring 90,000 sq ft will be launched next month in Vadodara (Gujarat).

Birlas, following the strategy adopted by Reliance Retail, are also looking at launching other retail formats including speciality stores for footwear, jewellery, consumer durables. Birlas may also look at discount stores format.

All the Trinethra group stores, numbering about 275 and occupying about 500,000 sq ft of space, are being rechristened as ‘More.’ The process of rebranding is expected to be completed by February, 2008. Incidentally, Trinethra had bulk of its stores numbering 105 (Hyderabad-79, Vizag-16, Vijayawada-10) based in Andhra Pradesh.