Bharti to unveil retail store plans with Wal-Mart
Bharti Enterprises will unveil plans for its retail store rollout with Wal-Mart Stores by the end of the month and is deciding whether to use Wal-Mart’s brand as part of its retail foray, chairman Sunil Mittal said on Tuesday.
Mr Mittal, who agreed in November to have Wal-Mart Stores as its partner in its launch of grocery stores across India, said he was using his experience as the founder of India’s mobile operator Bharti Airtel. ‘We’ll start with some part of India. We’ll decide where we go: north, west and slowly start to grow, like the telecoms network. We are looking at a sizeable investment,’ ‘We’re trying to give some guidance by the end of the month. Wal-Mart team is there (in India) now and next week. By the time they leave, we’ll get some idea,’ he added.
Cracking the Indian market with its 1.1 billion population remains a key target for the world’s biggest retailers. Wal-Mart in November stole a march on rivals France’s Carrefour and Tesco into the largely untapped US$300 billion sector.
Due to Indian legislation banning multiple-brand foreign retailers from front-end retail, the stores will be owned by Bharti Enterprises under the Wal-Mart franchise. Mr Mittal said a name had not been decided for the new stores and it was still considering whether to use Wal-Mart’s brand in the back-end operation.
‘It’s allowed. It’s possible, but we haven’t taken any decision,’ he said. Mr Mittal added he would not sell some of his stake in telecoms to fund retail, saying the group already had cash worth US$1.5 billion and zero leverage. He has said the total retail investment could run into billions of dollars.Asked if India would relax rules to allow foreign companies to invest in the front-end of retailing, Mr Mittal added Bharti was not ‘chasing’ for a change in the rules. ‘Bharti will do this on its own.’
