Future Retail Ltd was earlier known as Pantaloon Retail Ltd. This is one of Future Group’s flagship companies, which deals with broader operations like department stores, supermarkets, and specialty stores for electronics and home furnishing & decor. Future retail started as Manz Wear Pvt Ltd in 1991.
Future Retail Ltd is a part of Future Group headquartered in Mumbai, India. It was incorporated in 1987. Future Group has many divisions like Future Retail, Financial services ( Future Generali), Future Lifestyle Fashion Ltd, etc.
There has been a Scheme of Arrangement between Future Retail Limited (FRL) and Bharati Retail Limited in 2015-16. As per the arrangement, two distinct entities have been created from Future Enterprises Limited and Bharti Enterprises Limited’s combined businesses.
- All the front end business and operations of Big Bazaar, EasyDay, Home Town, eZone, fbb, Foodhall and others have been consolidated under Bharti Retail Limited’s retail business this name was changed to Future Retail Limited.
- All the backend operations that support the above chains and investment and manufacturing operations have been consolidated under Future Enterprises Limited.
Future Retail has a total income of Rs. 20,185.37 crore (US$ 2.89 billion) in FY19 and Rs. 15,717.09 crore (US$ 2.25 billion) in FY20
Product Portfolio
Future Retail is a presence across multiple domains:
- Big Bazaar: With almost 292 stores, Big Bazaar operates in Food, FMCG, Electronics, Apparels and Home decor. It owns nearly 12.4 mn sq. ft of retail space. It was launched in 2001. Now BigBazaar also offers product under Private levels.
- Fbb: Fbb operates in Apparels and has around 94 stores. It has around 1mn sq. ft of retail space.
- Food Hall & EasyDay: Both these stores work in Food & FMCG vertical. Future Retail has around 12 and 1007 stores, respectively. In terms of Retail stores, It has about 0.1 & 2.39 mn sq. ft of retail store. Foodhall was launched in May 2001, and it offers an assortment of fresh and packaged food of international and pan-Indian cuisine and kitchen accessories.
- eZone: Launched in 2006, eZone stores deal with electronics with seven stores and 0.1 mn sq. ft of retail store.
- HomeTown: HomeTown was launched in 2006 that offers home furnishing and decor items. In April 2017, Future Retail Ltd. demerged this home retail and e-commerce business into a separate entity known as Praxis Home Retail.
Big Bazaar, Big Bazaar GEN NXT, HyperCity, Foodhall, fbb, Food Bazaar, Easyday Club and Heritage Fresh operate under the hypermarket and supermarket retail format.
Value Proposition
- Innovative offering
- Quality and affordable products
- Value for money
- Help consumers achieve a better quality of life.
- Delighting consumers by adapting to their lifestyle needs and requirements
History: Future Retail
Right after the launch of Big Bazaar, the company expanded quickly, and it added 100+ stores in the next six-year, while Pantaloon grew to 65 stores by 2012. Future Group kept on expanding, and it had all significant companies like Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Brand Factory etc. under it. With rapid expansion, Future Group had a consolidated debt of Rs.8000 crores.
To pay the debt, Biyani sold his majority stake in Pantaloons Retail to Aditya Birla for Rs. 1,600 crores, including Rs.800 crores of debt transfer. Biyani also had to sell his non-banking finance company Future Capital Holdings to US-based private equity Warburg Pincus to raise funds.
All thought the company kept on expanding and entered in various other retail formats. Future Group company was transferred to a full-fledged consumer goods company from a retail-led company, and the company added 27 Private-label brands across categories in 2016.
The Ongoing Tussle Between Reliance-Future Retail and Amazon
The company’s debt also kept on increasing to Rs. 12,000 crores due to multiple factors like:
- Diversification and entering in multiple formats
- Increased competition in the retail segment
- Not realising the potential of online retailing and not entering into online retailing.
- COVID Outbreak
The company had to sell its major retail brand stores like Big Bazaar, fbb, Foodhall, Easyday, Nilgiris, Central and Brand Factory to Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd.(RRVL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries.
In August 2019, Amazon bought a 49 percent stake in one of Future Group’s unlisted companies – Future Coupons Ltd (FCL) – along with the right to acquire the listed flagship FRL after a few years, if the Centre were to revoke its ban on foreign ownership of multi-brand retailers. Future Retail ran into a severe cash crunch after the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the coronavirus outbreak. To stay afloat, it cut a deal with RIL to sell assets for Rs 24,713 crore.
The issue has been taken to SEBI and is now in court where the dispute is likely to drag on for months, leading to a deterioration in Future group’s retail assets
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