Winning Bizness Desk
Mumbai. The business world is set to witness fierce competition once again as Asia's richest man, Gautam Adani and Reliance Industries owner Mukesh Ambani are in a race to acquire debt-ridden Future Retail Ltd. According to a report, Moon Retail Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Adani Airport Holdings and Flamingo Group, as well as Reliance Retail Ventures and 13 other firms have submitted expressions of interest (EOIs) for Future Retail. Other firms that submitted these EOIs include Shalimar Corporation Limited, Nalwa Steel & Power, United Biotech, WHsmith Travel, Capri Global Holdings. As part of the ongoing insolvency process, a total of 33 lenders had submitted loan claims of more than Rs 21,000 crore in August. Lead lenders include Bank of India and State Bank of India.
Future Group was once country's second largest retailer
The deadline for submission of EOI for Future Retail, the flagship retail arm of Future Group, ended earlier this month. It was once the second largest retailer in the country. Banks have dragged it into bankruptcy proceedings after being unable to repay the loan. Future Retail wanted to sell its assets to Reliance Industries for $3.4 billion, but could not do so amid a legal challenge from Amazon Inc. and went into debt. State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India (BoI) and 31 other lenders had submitted loan claims of about ₹21,060 crore in August under the insolvency process.
Retail market to be 100 lakh crore by 2024
India's retail market is about 900 billion dollars (about 69 lakh crore rupees). By the year 2024, it is expected to be 1.3 trillion dollars (about 100 lakh crore rupees). This is the reason why big companies want to capture more and more offline market along with India's retail online market.
