Company Background - Pantaloon India

Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd (PRIL), previously known as Pantaloon Fashions (India) Ltd (PFIL) is India's leading retail company with presence across food, fashion, home solutions and consumer electronics, books and music, health, wellness and beauty, general merchandise, communication products, e-tailing and Liesure & Entertainment.

Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd, Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), operates through 3.5 million square feet of retail space, has over 100+ stores and 30+ cities in India. The company owns and manages multiple retail formats catering to a wide cross-section of the Indian society and its width and depth of merchandise helps it capture almost the entire consumption basket of the Indian consumer.

Its products are marketed under the brand name Pantaloon and Bare Necessities through a network of over 300 dealers spanning the metro and class-I cities in the country. PRIL also markets its products through a network of exclusive retail shops and Pantaloon Connections in the major metropolitan cities.

Founded in 1987, Pantaloon Retail forayed into modern retail in 1997 with the opening up of a chain of department stores, Pantaloons. In 2001, it launched Big Bazaar, a hypermarket chain, followed by Food Bazaar, a supermarket chain. It went on to launch Central, a first of its kind, seamless mall located in the heart of major Indian cities. Some of it's other formats include, Collection I (home improvement products), E-Zone (consumer electronics), Depot (books, music, gifts and stationaries), aLL (fashion apparel for plus-size individuals), Shoe Factory (footwear) and Blue Sky (fashion accessories). It has recently launched its etailing venture, futurebazaar.com.

Some of the companies subsidiaries include Home Solutions Retail India Ltd, Pantaloon Food Product (India) Ltd, Footmart Retail (India) Ltd, Pan Indian Restaurants Ltd, Future Media (India) Ltd, Future Logistic Solutions Limited, CIG Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, KB Infin Pvt Ltd, Kshitij Investment and Advisory Co Ltd, and ConvergeM Retail (India) Ltd, which leads the group's foray into home improvement, e-tailing and communication products, respectively. Other group companies include Pantaloon Industries Ltd, Galaxy Entertainment and Indus League Clothing. The company has also entered joint venture agreements with a number of companies including ETAM group, Gini & Jony, Liberty Shoes and Planet Retail, a company that owns the franchisee of international brands like Marks & Spencer, Debenhams and Guess in India.

A new Trouser manufacturing plant at MIDC Tarapur at a installed capacity of 1200 Trousers per day was commissioned on early 2001.

The company has acquired the trademark and exclusive licensing rights for apparel brand Norules in India,from US based Norules Inc in 2003. During 2004,the comapny has entered into strategic alliance with Arvind Brands Ltd.

During 2005-2006, the company, has expanded its capacity of stiching machines from 300 Nos to 373 Nos to produce Apparels.

The company signed a MOU with Talwalkars Better Value Fitness Pvt to form a 50:50 Joint Venture company for retailing of fitness/wellness related products and for the rendering of health and fitness related services. The company also signed a MOU with Manipal Health Systems Pvt Ltd to form a 50-50 Joint Venture company for rendering healthcare related services and sale of healthcare products.

The company has entered in to a strategic alliance agreement with Ruchi Soya Industries Limited for sale of refined edible oil in the stores of the Company.

The Company has on July 31, 2006 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Blue Foods Private Limited to form a 50-50 Joint Venture Company for setting up food courts and speciality restaurants across the country.

During 2005-2006, the company transferred its shareholding in its subsidiaries i.e, Ambit Investment Advisory company Ltd and Kshitij Investment Advisory company Ltd to its subsidiary KB Infin Pvt Ltd.

During 2005-2006, the company also allotted on rights basis 44,78,720 equity shares of Rs.10/- each at premium of Rs.490/- per share aggregating to Rs.22393.60 lacs. The company also allotted 4,08,165 equity shares of Rs.10/- each on preferential basis.

The company has expansion plan to increase the retail space under control substantially. The total retail space at the end of 2005-06 stood at over 2.75 million square feet. The company has planned to roll out further retail space of 2.50 million square feet in the 2006-07 under various retailing formats it operates.