The deal has been inked with lending banks like with SBI, HDFC and HSBC to whom the retailer owes major part of debt of around Rs 730 crore.

“The agreement with our lenders has been signed and the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) process will begin within the first half of November,” said Ambeek Khemka Group President Vishal retail to PTI. The company is confident of completing the process of CDR in 100 days, according to Khemka. Scoffing the rumour of banks insisting on the condition of Company’s founder and Chairman Ram Chander Agarwal resigning from the Board, Khemka said, “There is no such condition. The CDR is an open-ended business and any decision will be made only after the process is completed.”

It may be interesting recall that another retail wonder “Subhiksha” which also grew at breakneck speed during heydays of retail was unable to complete the process of CDR initiated by the banks. Of course, while the two companies grew at a much faster pace than most others, there situations are not quite comparable.

The retailer, which operates around 170 mega (mini- hyper market format) stores across the country has been battling hard for cash as most of the funds raised by the company through hugely successful IPO and debt from banks has been invested in capital intensive expansion of retail chain which has failed to generate adequate cash flows to service the same.

Although, the retailer in the past few months had initiated several measures to restructure the operations, it was unable to stem the rot that had arisen due to the double whammy of falling footfalls and shrinking customer basket faced by the company in 2008-09. Interestingly, Vishal has held last year’s global economic slowdown for most of its woes.

“Wal-Mart is very satisfied with the results in India. I was informed by the Wal-Mart CEO that they are looking at opening more stores. He gave a figure of 40 more stores across the country in the immediate future.”

It may be recalled that S Robson Walton, scion of Walmart’s founder Sam Walton and present Chairman, was recently in India. Walton, during his visit to the country last week, had a meeting with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Commerce & Industries Minister Anand Sharma to discuss retail sector in India.

Walton is keen that India initiates policy changes for foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail sector of India. He wants the government to lift the ban on entry of MNC retailers in multi-brand front-end retail by allowing them to invest in this segmen of retail business. Currently, India allows FDI of up to 100 per cent in cash and carry and of up to 51 per cent in single brand retail.

Walmart has so far set up a solitary cash and carry store under the brand name “Best Price Modern” wholesale Store at Amritsar in Punjab. The store set up by 50:50 JV between Walmart and Sunil Mittal-led Bharti group was launched on the 30th May, this year. To prepare manpower for the company’s existing and future stores as well as to help the retail industry meet its human resources requirements, the JV under PPP initiative has also set up training academies in partnership with the government of Punjab. These academies are offering courses in different aspects of retail business to rural and unemployed youth coming from nearby towns and villages.

Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti group, though eching the sentiments of Walmart’s Chief, was little cautious on the retail venture’s expansion plans for cash and carry business. According to Mittal, while more and more cash and carry stores will be opened every few months, the company will not go very fast on the same. The company will follow a measured approach, said Mittal.

Currently, while no FDI is allowed in the multi-brand segment of retail operations, up to 51 per cent of foreign equity is allowed in single-brand retail and up to 100 per cent foreign equity is allowed in cash and carry (B2B) wholesale (indirect retail) in India.

S Robson Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, according to an ET report, called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday, to impress upon him the need to open the multi-brand, front-end, retail segment to foreign investors in India. Doug McMillon, Walmart’s CEO of international business, had also recently met India’s ministers of agriculture and commerce to canvas for company’s future plans for India.

India, the second fastest growing economy of the world, holds special attraction for the world’s top multi-brand American and European retailers like Walmart Inc, Carrefour SA, Tesco plc, and Metro AG to fullfil their growth ambitions, since the growth in western economies has almost become stagnant.

Walmart Stores is present India via Bharti Wal-Mart Private Ltd– a 50:50 joint venture with Bharti Enterprises (Sunil Mittal-led India’s largest private telecom player). This joint venture has already opened a cash and carry store under the brand name of Best Modern wholesale on the 30th May, 2009 at the holy city of Amritsar and is ready to open another store at Ludhiana in Punjab.

To somewhat overcome its non-presence in multi-brand retail, Walmart is also offering back-end logistic and technical support services to Bharti’s retail arm Bharti Retail, which has opened a multi-brand supermarket and mini-hypermarket retail chain called “Easyday” in several areas of North India. The retail chain was launched over a one and a half year ago in April 2008 from Ludhiana in Punjab.

According to earlier assertions, Bharti Retail will eventually become a part of Walmart Bharti’s retail JV in India, once the government agrees to change the policy for a sector that provides second largest employment in India.

The targets set by Biyani, though ambitious, are quite doable for the group. They translate into annual growth rate of around 20 per cent per number. It must, however, be said that this growth now onwards will have to come from much bigger base. The targets will mean doubling the group turnover from present Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore as well as doubling the occupied space from 14 million sq ft to 30 mn sq ft in a time span of less than 4 years.

According to Kishore Biyani India’s consumption business market at $350-400 billion is 35 to 40 per cent of the country’s $1 trillion total economy.

Future group keeps track of consumption habits of consumers belonging to different religions and communities on a continuing basis. “We keep track of nine communities and observe what they eat and consume,” said Biyani.

TiE-ISB, billed as the country’s most exciting annual networking event for entrepreneurs and investors, was held at Hotel Marriot on the 22nd and 23rd October, 2009 in Hyderabad. The theme for this year’s event was “The Crisis will pass….Will You, addressing real issues.” TiE-ISB Connect enables interaction of aspiring entrepreneurs, early-stage ventures, and growth-stage ventures with potential investors, successful entrepreneurs and mentors.

Mohena– the lingerie and nightwear brand– which has been specially designed for the Indian woman is looking at redefining style and comfort in Indian lingerie market.

Mohena will initially offer a range of 5 products comprising two lingerie and three nightwear products. While, lingeries will be priced between Rs. 299/- and Rs. 699/-, the nightwear products will be available between Rs. 449/- and 799/-.

“Our reading of Indian woman established her need to ‘express herself with comfort,’ to drop the tag of ‘traditional,’ and her growing desire to ‘celebrate comfort and freedom in contemporary Indian context,’ said Atulit Saxena, COO-Brands, Futurebrands Ltd, while explaining the brand’s concept.

“Mohena has a range of intimate wear which captures Indian femininity not only in design motifs, but also through the architecture of the product, through ease-breathing fabrics and fits suited to the Indian woman. With Mohena, we aim to create a brand that is reminiscent of the timeless portrayal of the Indian female form and that pays tribute to her beauty,” said Jaydeep Shetty, Head-New Business Development, Future Group.

Mohena is expecting to garner a turnover of Rs. 7-8 crores in the first full year of operations. The turnover is expected to then double each year for the next two years. Mohena will be a Rs. 20-25 crores brand by end of the third year of operations (by 2012) and is targeting to penetrate 20 per cent of the mass premium market in the main metros over the next 3 years, according to a press release issued by the company.

Apart from selling these products at Reliance Autozone’s specialty stores, Reliance will also set up shop-in-shop format retail outlets at Reliance Digital and some other group retail chains to offer the new generation navigational products to Indian consumers.

“Through co-operation with Reliance Autozone and its affiliated companies as strategic partners in India, Garmin has jumped a bigger step to be closer to the Indian market,” Garmin Corporation director (sales and marketing) Tony An said.

While, the Cayman Islands-based Garmin is one the world’s leading brands of GPS enabled navigation, communication and information devices, applications and related products Reliance Autozone is one of the niche retail format of Reliance Retail, a Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group company owned by Reliance Industries Limited.

Launched at Jamnagar in Gujarat on the 6th February, 2008, Reliance Autozone is presently operating six stores at Gurgaon, Jaipur, Ghaziabad, Jamnagar, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The Autozone specialty chain has, however, announced plans for setting up 10 to 15 new stores of the retail chain by March, 2011.

Compared to the boom year of 2007, which had seen a large number of serious and non-serious players entering the sector, the year 2008 turned out to be quite tough. Global financial meltdown, which also resulted in loss of jobs and evaporation of retail credit in India, many retailers were forced to shut down a few or all of the shops in the face of falling footfalls and declining purchases.

The retailers were, therefore, cautious this festive season in projecting growth. While, they would have been happy achieving growth of around 15 to 20 per cent, were pleasantly surprised to see the growth of over 30 per cent, sometimes even going beyond 100 per cent.

Most interestingly, festive season, which began two months ago from early September with Onam festival in Kerala, according to media reports, has seen consumers buying not only apparel and fashion items but consumer durables and home improvement products, as well. These categories were incidentally most affected last year as there was a decline of business in home retail category.

While, Samsung saw the growth of 40 per cent growth, the growth for LG– another Korean consumer electronics and home appliance rival– was equally happy with over 40 per cent increase in home appliances business.

Both LG and Samsung, who between them control large part of durables pie, saw nearly one-third of their overall annual sales coming from festive season. For Samsung it meant $700 million (or 35 per cent) of targeted $ 2 billion sales during the year. LG, on the other hand, while not revealing exact figures, was quite happy with most of its products like washing machines, micro ovens, and LCD TVs doing very well in the market place.

Kishore Biyani-led Future group, which has been facing the spectre for over a year of declining same-store-sales in the home retail segment, the turnaround has been most satisfactory. The retailer, which operates retail chains like Home Town and e-Zone in this segment, saw quite happy registering a growth of 5 to 7 per cent in home products like furniture and 20 to 30 per cent in consumer electronics.

“The home segment recovered in this festive season. It showed a positive growth of 5-7 per cent. In electronics, we saw a 20-30 per cent jump in sales,” said Kishore Biyani, CEO, Future Group.

The group, which had targeted Rs 500 crore worth of sales during the week beginning 15th October, has already crossed targeted growth of 24 per cent. According to Rakesh Biyani, Chief Executive (Retail) of Future Group, “Consumer sentiment looks very positive and there is good traction in sales.”

Reliance Retail too has witnessed month-on-month growth of around 35 per cent in consumer electronics, home appliances and IT related gadget categories, among others.

Shopper’s Stop’s Vice Chairman B S Nagesh is also satisfied with positive consumer sentiment and is positive on the next two quarters. While, the retailer has seen increased spending on non-apparel, jewellery and cosmetics, it is also satisfied with stable business for apparel category.

Pantaloon Retail, part of Future group, and Reliance Retail have also seen improved business in apparel business this festive season. While, Pantaloon has witnessed 20 per cent growth in its fashion segment, Reliance is happy with growth in this category.

Vishal Retail, which for past few months has been facing lot of financial stress, is happy with 20 per cent growth in festive sales. It is confident of touching growth number of up to 35 per cent before the end of the season.

We hope to further cover festive performance of other important — large and small– retailers in the coming days.

For example, Rahejas-led Shopper’s Stop, which was relatively a bigger and more famous retailer than Pantaloon in 2001, despite being owned by a leading construction group, has not been able to keep pace since, with the growth of Pantaloon Retail.

While, Shopper’s Stop at Rs 204 crore (turnover) was 33 per cent higher than Pantaloon (Rs 150 crore) in 2001, today it’s less than one-sixth of the latter, in terms of both sales and size. Shopper’s Stop’s 2009 turnover of Rs 1,270.37 crore (Year ending March 31) is a mere 16.56 per cent of Pantaloon Retail’s 2009 turnover of Rs 7,669.40 crore (Year ending June 30).

This, among others, is a direct outcome of Pantaloon Retail multplying its retail space at a much faster rate than Shopper’s Stop. Against around 2.5 million sq ft of space occupied by Shopper’s Stop, Pantaloon is currently operating with more than five-fold space of around 13 million sq ft.

The importance of this can be gauged from the fact while most retailers in boom days of retail in 2007 were leasing space between Rs 60 and 80 (or more) per sq ft, Pantaloon was sitting pretty with large contracts at around Rs 30 per sq ft.

Pantaloon is again ahead in the race of signing new space contacts, while most of its competitors are still busy with consolidating/ rationalising their badly bruised operations.

Kishore Biyani, in a conference call, has revealed that he has already signed contracts for a whopping 20 to 22 million sq ft of new space This has to be seen in the context of Pantaloon Retail, currently occupying 13 million sq ft of space. The company is operating around 260 stores under several value and lifestyle brands.

With the opening of the two new stores– one each at Bangalore (franchisee) and Shopper’s Stop, Hyderabad (shop-in-shop), the tally of “Crossword” stores across the country has gone up from 53 to 55. The retail chain is operating these 55 stores at several locations including Ahmedabad, Bangalooru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Pune and Vadodara.

Crossword, which was founded 17 years ago in October, 1992, was acquired from original promoters by Mumbai-based construction major K Raheja group. Apart from construction projects, Rahejas are also among the leading retailers of the country. Apart from Shopper’s Stop — their flagship lifestyle retail chain– they also own or control HyperCity, Home City, and Mothercare retail chains.

Raheja’s are also involved in retail infrastructure as they have built several retail malls. They have so far constructed three malls under the “In-Orbit” brand name at Mumbai (Malad), Vashi, and Hyderabad. They are presently also presently constructing three new malls at Bangalore, Pune, and Vadodara.

Subhiksha’s used its time tested brand mantra of “low cost” to lure customers to its shops. Many customers, who lined up the shops to buy crackers, were attracted by promotional lines like “Largest Cracker Shop” and “Lowest Price, All Varieties.” Triad Trading Services– a group shell company– was roped in as a franchisee for the purpose.

This year only four outlets could be roped in to sell crackers, though last year their number was as high as 30. As against last year’s sales of Rs 10 crore in 10 days, this year the retailer is believed to have sold crackers of Rs 3 crore in value.

Although, this would have rekindled hopes of reviving beleaguered company’s operations in the near future, probability of this happening is very slim as Subhiksha is facing several petitions seeking winding-up of the company’s operations. Madras High Court (MHC) has already posted dates for hearing of these petitions.

The Liverpool family store is part of 50 such family stores being planned to be set up by the company by March, 2011. Twenty five of these 50 family stores are slated to come up in the next three months.

Apart from family stores, the retailer is also embarking on an aggressive plan to expand its present network of 500 Liverpool menswear stores located across 22 states of the country. While 70 of the 500 stores are located in the home state of Gujarat, the retailer is also having its presence outside India. It is currently operating a store each in the UAE and Nepal.

Liverpool has drawn up plans to set up 700 new menswear stores by March 2010. It will also set up another 300 stores by March 2011, thus, taking the tally of new stores to 1,000 in less than 18 months. The total network of menswear outlets after completion of expansion will thus rise to 1,500 stores.

The company is also diversifying into footwear retailing by opening a new exclusive footwear chain. This retail chain is planning to set up 25 footwear stores this year, while another 75 stores are expected to be added soon, thereby, taking the number of footwear stores to 100 in the coming months.

The company has earmarked a sum of Rs 200 crore to fund its expansion.

Liverpool is presently sourcing its requirement from third party manufacturers, however, to augment supplies, it has decided to also set up a garments manufacturing facility in Ahmedabad. The plant is expected to be ready for production by 2010-11.

The new mall, located at Mindspace, is the third such mall property of Mumbai-based construction major K. Raheja Corporation. The other two In-orbit properties are located at Malad in Mumbai, and Vashi in Greater Mumbai.

The mall, as to be expected, houses ‘Hyper City’ and ‘Shoppers’ Stop,’ as its anchor tenants. The two hypermarket and deprtment store format retailers are also part of K Raheja group. “Lifestyle” — the Dubai-based up-market, lifestyle, retailer– is the the third anchor tenant of the mall. These three tenants account for majority of 1.2 million sq.ft built-up space of Cyberabad mall, which boasts a three level car perking facility for 1,300 cars. In-orbit has also tied up with Cinemax to set up six screens with a capacity to sit 1,000 persons.

All the In-orbit malls are being designed to serve as destination stores. These properties like most similar destinations will also offer a combination of leisure, entertainment, and shopping in the form of entertainment zone, night club, food courts, and retail shops. Each property is expected to house around 150 retail stores.

The group, according to Kishore Bhatija, its Chief Executive Officer for Inorbit Malls, is also constructing three more such properties in other large cities at an investment of Rs 600 crore.

The first of such properties will come up at Pune in August 2010 followed by another property in December 2010 at White Field in Bangalore. The third property is being built at Vadodara in Gujarat.

Apart from adding kids’ line to its range of men’s apparel and accessories, the brand is now looking at launching a range of footwear and eyewear products for women (source). While, ‘casuals,’ account for nearly two-thirds of the brand’s total turnover, balance one-third is contributed by formal and evening wears respectively in almost equal measures.

“We are looking at stratification of the wardrobe. While more casual lines have been introduced, we are looking at widening our product basket. It is not a transformation from formal to causal but an upgradation to include a larger product assortment,” said R. Satyajit, Chief Operating Officer, Allen Solly. “There has been a significant growth from our casual wear portfolio. We hope the new line will also attract consumers,” added Satyajit.

To augment its line of products and offer contemporary designs and styles, Allen Solly has also engaged services of Shombit Sengupta-led, “Shining Strategic Design” a well-known and reputed design and consultancy house.

The company, according to Satyajit, is also expanding its retail presence. It plans to open 60 stores. “We are looking to double every two years,” said Satyajit.

The JV has already launched its first C&C store under the brand name of “Best Price Modern Wholesale” a few months ago. The store was launched at Amritsar in Punjab state on the 30th May, 2009. The company is also ready to launch its second store in December (perhaps at Ludhiana– the home town of Mittals, Bharti group owners).

Walmart, though known for its big-box format stores, has been forced to begin its operations in India with ‘cash and carry’ format as the current government policy guidelines do not allow setting up of front-end, multi-brand, retail stores by MNC retailers in India.

“After north, the discussion is really south or west. We believe southern markets are much more growth oriented”, said Rajan Bharti Mittal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises, while speaking to reporters in Bangalore.

“Ecosystem (in the south) is far better than the north when the company started operations there,” said Rajan Mittal, adding, “Hopefully, south will see some action from us. We have to be a pan-India company.”

The prevailing real estate costs will, however, be an important consideration in deciding on the South or the West. “… we are already looking at real estate pieces here in southern and western parts (of the country). It (opening stores) depends on how real estate plays its game,” said Mittal.

Bharti- Walmart is planning to set up 10 to 15 cash and carry centres across India by 2015.