New Delhi: Discount retailer Vishal Retail Ltd plans to invest up to Rs3,000 crore over the next three years to open hundreds of stores, start a logistics subsidiary and enter wholesale retailing later this year.
The company plans to add about 10 million sq. ft by March 2011 in setting up about 500 supermarkets to hypermarkets and hopes to employ up to 70,000 people. It plans to fund the expansion through debt and equity ratio of 2:1.
Ram Chandra Agarwal, chairman and managing director, Vishal Retail Pvt. Ltd
“As and when we require money we will raise it from the market,” said Ram Chandra Agarwal, Vishal’s chairman and managing director, who listed his firm last year when the markets were buoyant and whose Rs110 crore issue was subscribed 69 times.
Vishal currently runs more than 100 supermarkets to hypermarkets spanning around 2 million sq. ft in 69 cities from Jammu to Jaipur.
The company plans to add up to 1.5 million sq. ft this year and would raise around Rs200 crore in coming months through a preferential issue to fund short-term expansion plans.
Vishal is targeting Rs1,800 crore in revenues for the fiscal year ending March 2009 with a net profit of more than Rs70 crore, Agarwal said. The retailer is yet to announce its results for the year ending March 2008.
Vishal has emerged as one of the largest hypermarket chains that thrived on a consumer boom in one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. The company’s bullish plans illustrate sentiments in India’s nascent yet roaring retail sector.
Vishal officials were tight-lipped about the logistics plans and only said the venture will mainly service the company’s retail business.