| It has been believed that after losing out to Wal-Mart in its negotiations with Bharti, Tesco has been wooing Tatas, India's premier business house, for its retail foray into India. This has now been denied by their Director, Mr. R. Krishna Kumar.,
The US$ 22 billion, Tata Group owns two companies in the retailing space. The first company, Trent operates three retail formats under Westside (lifestyle products), Star India Bazaar , and Landmark brands. The second company, Tata Infiniti sells consumer durable and digital products, under Croma brand with a tie-up with the Australian retail chain, Woolworths.
"There have been no discussions with Tesco. We are very happy with Woolworths and they will remain our first preference," said Krishna Kumar."It's too early to talk about entering into other formats of retailing," added Krishna Kumar pointing out that Trent has done very well managing different formats such as the Star India Bazaar hypermarket, apparel store Westside and books and music chain Landmark.
Tesco may have to search for another partner to fulfill its India related ambitions as current government policy does not allow entry of multi-brand retailers in front-end retail operations. Even, Wal-Mart will have to remain content with partnering for back-end operations with Bharti. The front end operations will be 100 per cent owned by Bharti.
Among other big ticket retailers, Carrefour- the France based, world's second biggest retail chain, is said to be on the verge of signing the deal with Nusli Wadia, who has interests in biscuits, real estate, textiles and civil aviation. Landmark of Dubai and Anil Ambani owned ADAG are also said to be in the running for the alliance.
In the meantime, Croma, launched its second retail store at Malad in Mumbai on Friday, the 16th February, 2007. The new store was inaugurated by Bollywood star and Rajya Sabha member Hema Malini, in the presence of Tata Sons' Director, Krishna Kumar. He announced that Croma will set up 40 outlets by March, 2008 at an investment outlay of Rs. 120 crores ( US $ 27mill.)
The store, which occupies retail space of about 22,000 sq. ft., is bigger in size than its elder sibling at Juhu. The next Croma store is slated to come up at Prabhadevi in central Mumbai. Most Croma stores will have around 20,000 square feet in retail space.
The two outlets offer consumer durable and electronic products under different categories, including, Home Entertainment, Home Theatre, Music and DVDs, Computers, Wi-Fi, Imaging, Home Appliances, Communications, White Goods, and Gaming.
Details at: http://www.indiaretailbiz.com |
