Aditya Birla Retail to invest Rs10,000cr

Aditya Birla Retail (ABRL), the retail arm of the Aditya Birla Group, would be investing Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crore in expanding its operations across the country over a period of five years.

The company, which aims to emerge as one of the leading retail players in India, plans to have nearly 1,500 supermarket and 100 hypermarket stores in the next five years. It is also investing in backend infrastructure to develop a robust supply chain, Sumant Sinha, chief executive officer, ABRL said.

ABRL, which launched its first store in May 2007 at Pune, currently has nearly 400 supermarket stores and one hypermarket store. Its retail footprint in South India extended to 275 stores following the acquisition of Trinethra Super Retail stores last year. The company is setting up a hypermarket in Baroda by this month-end. At present, it has one such store in Mysore.

Announcing the rebranding of the Trinethra stores to 'More' here today, Sinha said the company is looking at all options, including coming out with an initial public offering, to raise funds to finance its expansion programme.

Andrew Denby, chief executive officer (supermarkets), ABRL, said the company's retail stores served 2 million customers last month.