IndiaRetailBiz

Pantaloon Retail, the flagship retail company of Kishore Biyani-led Future group, which recently deferred its restructuring plans, is going aggresively on expanding its business in the value segment, which accounts for over three-fifth (60 per cent) of the company’s overall retail business.

Pantaloon, which until May end operated 114 ‘Big Bazaar’ stores and 156 Food Bazaar stores, is setting up six Big Bazaar stores and 8 new Food Bazaar stores (including cut-ins) during the months of June and July, 2009. Of the total retail space of 14 million sq ft, Big Bazaar value chain accounts for about 5 million sq ft.

Pantaloon is planning to open 50 new stores of Big Bazaar– its hypermarket format chain– in the next one year. 20 of these 50 stores will be set up in tier-II cities. At an average cost of Rs 7 crore each, Pantaloon will invest Rs 350 crore on setting up the new stores. The company has recently raised capital of Rs 367.50 crore by issuing ’preferential’ issue of shares and ‘warrants’ to its promoters and is looking at raising further resources of Rs 1,000 crore to fuel its future expansion.

Big Bazaar operates three formats for this retail chain. The size of a store depends on location and business potential of the market in which a particular store is located. While, the largest ’supercentre’ format occupies over 100,000 sq ft space, the regular ‘hypermarket’ format occupies 40,000 to 50,000 sq ft of space. The smallest ‘express’ format occupying 15,000 to 20,000 sq ft is preferred in smaller cities and towns.

Leveraging on Big Bazaar’s brand equity, the group is also looking at promoting speciality businesses like fashion and differentiated food products through standalone stores. While, the company has already launched fashion@bigbazaar stores, it is in the process of setting up similar stand alone outlets for food products and top consumer deals.