Kishore Biyani-led Future group today agreed to merge its retail
business with rival Bharti Retail in an all-stock deal worth Rs 750 crore to create one of the biggest supermarket chains with Rs 15,000 crore turnover.
This is the second major consolidation exercise within two days in the fast-growing Indian retail sector, after Aditya Birla Group yesterday announced merging all its apparel retail businesses into a single entity.
The two-tier deal between Future and Bharti groups also involves merger of their respective retail infrastructure business into Future Retail — creating two separate companies for the front-end retail and infrastructure activities.
Future Group promoters would hold 46-47 per cent stake in each of the two companies, while Bharti Retail will have about 15 per cent holding in each of them.
