Indian Talent, Global Content
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Indian Talent, Global Content |
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March 2010: What's in the breeze |
News Update from the Retail Scene in India
The retail industry could see a sea change with the Government of India considering Foreign Direct Investment. With this in view, Chillibreeze plans to bring you periodical updates on the retail scene in India.The Chillibreeze Business Research Team has writers with interest and experience in the Retail industry, will be populating this page with the updates. For other weekly updates click: Weekly Retail Update Feb 26th – March 4th India Retail News: Godrej-RPG, Pantaloon, McDonalds, Emami1) Sunday, February 26, 2006 The city’s first book mall Bamaparichoy, a Rs 2 billion project, is being developed by the Bengal Shelter Housing Development and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The complex will consist of 3 buildings of 5 storeys, covering 8,00,000 sq ft designed and constructed by Hafeez Contractor. Besides selling books of all types, there will be several libraries, a ‘Book Hospital’ to repair torn books, a ‘Book Box’ for aspiring authors to submit manuscripts to get feedback from prominent authors. Source: Economic Times 2) Monday, February 27, 2006 One of the leading fashion and lifestyle retailers of India and the largest retailer in North India, Ebony has been awarded an ISO Certification. The CEO and Director or Ebony Retail Holdings, Lalit Kumar, said that the certificate “validates the stringent quality procedures followed at Ebony.” Source: Retailyatra.com 3) Monday, February 27, 2006 Godrej Properties began construction of its Rs 1.75 billion shopping mall in Kolkata, in a joint venture with CESC, a RPG Group company. Godrej is also planning to invest Rs 2 billion in 2 IT projects in the state as well. The CESC-Godrej Plaza will be completed in the next two years. Source: Economic Times 4) Tuesday, February 28, 2006 Pantaloon Retail is offering a co-branded credit card with ICICI Bank only to its women customers at Big Bazaar stores. The card will have no fees and have a limit of Rs 5,000, with a 50 days free credit period. Pantaloon Retail had earlier launched a credit card jointly with ICICI for its customers at Central Mall, offering reward points and a 0% EMI. Source: Sify Finance 5) Wednesday, March 1, 2006 The real estate investment arm of Morgan Stanley has invested about $68 million in Mantri Developers Private Ltd, an Indian property developer. This is the US investment banks first entry into a fast growing market. Mantri Developers are based in Bangalore and works on residential, office and retail projects. The company is now planning to expand to Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. The interest from foreign companies is since the government eased the rules on foreign investment last year by allowing foreigners to own property and reduced the minimum size for housing estates built with foreign capital to 25 acres from 100 acres. Foreign investors can also build commercial buildings as long as there is a minimum of 538,200 sq ft (50,000sq meters) of floor space. Other foreign investors who have entered the Indian real estate market are Singapore company Ascendas, Keppel Land and CapitaLand Ltd. Other companies that are showing interest are US based Hines, JP Morgan Partners, Warburg Pincus and Broadstreet Group. Source: CNN Money 6) Thursday, March 02, 2006 The CEO of Home Solutions, home furnishings venture of Pantaloon Retail, Raghu Pillai is to join Reliance Retail as chief executive of retail operations and strategy. Reliance Retail is expected to hire close to 20,000 top level management staff within the next year. Prior to Home Solutions, Raghu Pillai was the President, Retail at RPG Enterprises. With the growth of the organized retail sector by 30% from Rs 269.2 billion in the past year, there is a severe shortage of retail professionals leading to several retailers in investing in opening educational and grooming centers for the industry. Source: Economic Times 7) Tuesday, March 2, 2006 President Bush’s visit to India will highlight the country’s emergence as an important member of the global economy, with an average annual growth rate of nearly 6% since 1980. Although India is often overshadowed by China, the country has the second-fastest growing economy in the world for the last 25 years. Source: Businessweek 8) Thursday, March 2, 2006 The Indian government did not tackle any of the economic reforms that have been opposed by its communist allies in the 2006-07 budget. While there was no mention of reforms in insurance, pensions and retailing, a bill on insurance is expected to be introduced from April. Once the polls in 5 states are over, reforms are expected to be introduced; permitting foreigners own 49% in insurance firms, 26% in pension fund management firms and opening up the retail sector. Source: Reuters 9) Thursday, March 02, 2006 Hardcastle Restaurants, the Indian partner of McDonalds, is planning to open outlets along the highways in Gujarat. The company will also increase the number of outlets in the cities. The highway outlets are still in the planning stage and will open by early 2007. Source: Rediff Money 10) Thursday, March 2, 2006 The New Delhi based lifestyle company; FC2 Lifestyle Pvt Ltd has announced that it will be setting up 35-40 stores offering home decoration products in the next 2-3 years. The Director of FC2 Lifestyle, Abhinav Khandelwal said that with the increase in the number of nuclear families and the emphasis on personal creativity, the market for home decoration products is growing rapidly. The new stores will be called FCML Home and will be opened in 15 major cities across the country. The company also plans to expand its current business of sanitary ware products with new stores in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Source: Hindu Business Line 11) Thursday, March 2, 2006 Reliance is planning to open 775 retail stores in the next five years. The company is expected to spend nearly Rs 1 billion in salaries for the retail division in the first year of operations. The company will have up to 25 high profile CEOs and more than 150 professionals at the middle management level. Raghu Pillai, former director of retail at Home Solutions, Pantaloon Retail’s home furnishings venture, will be joining as CEO, Strategic Operations. Gunender Kapur, former Unilever Nigeria Chief will be CEO of the food and grocery division. Source: Rediff Money 12) Friday, March 03, 2006 The Kolkata based FMCG company, Emami is planning to incorporate 20,000 rural marketers in West Bengal as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. The project will have two schemes to rural individuals: Emami mobile traders and small village shops. Sushil Goekna, Emami’s Managing Director, said that the company is planning to bring a total of 100,000 rural individuals under the project in West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Karnataka and Maharashtra within the next three to four years. Source: Business Standard
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