IndiaRetailBiz

Bharti Retail Ltd, the retailing arm of telecom behemoth Bharti Enterprises Limited, is getting ready to roll out a chain of front-end retail stores from North India, beginning August, 2008. The first set of stores, like many other of its counterparts (Reliance, Aditya Birla, for example) will be in convenience format store each measuring between 2,000 and 5,000 sq.ft. of retail space.

Bharti is likely to soon announce its roll out plans for supermarket (30,000-50,000 sq ft) and hypermarket (75,000 – 125,000 sq ft) of space.

Bharti Enterprises, as announce earlier is planning to invest around Rs. 10,000 crore to set up a three-tier chain retail stores across the country. It has plans to occupy 10 million sq. ft. of space by 2015.

While, the company will manage most of its Product offerings on its ‘own,’ it may offer specialised product category like pharmaceuticals in its supermarket and hypermarket formats through other retail chains, according to a ‘Live Mint’ report.

“All other things are in-house… But, for pharmacy, we will probably have a tie-up and that is work-in-progress,” said, Rajan Mittal, its Managing Director. “That (announcement regarding potential partner for this) will happen as we unveil the stores. I don’t think so there are many pan-India kind of brands. So, you tend to pick up a partner at the end of the day who grows with us or you pick up two or three,” added Mittal.

Although, not revealed yet, the potential pharmacy counter partner could be Fortis Healthworld. Fortis is a Ranbaxy group outfit, which under the leadership of Bhai Shivender Mohan Singh, manages a chain of premium hospitals (including erstwhile Delhi-based Escorts Hospital) and a a chain of retail drug stores.

While, Bharti chain of front-end retail stores (brand-name of which is yet to be revealed) will be wholly owned by Bharti group with back-end services by Wal-Mart, its chain of ‘cash-n-carry’ stores will be equally owned by Bharti and the world’s largest retailerWal-Mart.