Keeping track of Biyani
It seems to me that Kishore Biyani announces the plan to start a new retail format everyday. The questions that come to my mind are as follows:
(a) Where will he get the money to launch so many retail formats?
(b) Does he have the management capability to handle so many different formats?
(c) What about space?
(d) The number of different brands that Future Group (FG) is planning / promoting.
So I am going to start tracking how many retail formats he announces and what is the status of these retail formats as on date.
August 2007
FG rolled out small neighbourhood KB’s Fair Price Value Stores in many parts of Northern Delhi. Stock only essential items. Non-airconditioned stores. It has plans to roll out these stores in
Mumbai also. It has plans to open 1500 stores all over the country. Currently it runs 24 of these stores in New Delhi
Jan 8, 2008
FG announces it plans to open 250 No Frills grocery stores in New Delhi region in the next two years.
Jan 18, 2008
Future Group (FG) announced the establishment of 750 new mobile stores. Investment planned of Rs. 250-300 crores alongwith its 50:50 JV partner Axiom Telecom of UAE. Two types of stores. Brand Axiom will be premium and brand Mobile Bazaar for value mobiles. By the way, it seems that KBG is already selling mobiles under 3 brands – M bazaar (a shop within shop format), M-Port (Independent brand stores) and Gen M (kiosks in malls). Do you think KBG needed more mobile retail brands?
Feb 2, 2008
Biyani is in race to buy the personal and home loan portfolio of GE.
It seems to me that the newspapers just go on printing news releases from the FG without at least once asking where is the money, space and management capability going to come from.
So if you are aware of the different retail formats of FG and their current status do let us know.
avinash narula
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Hi guys!
Biyani is at it again (Aug 1, 2008). He has plans to open 1000 grocery stores under the brand Big Bazaar within the next three years. Do you think this is enough for Biyani? Certainly not. He plans to launch catalogue stores as well as supermarket under the big Bazaar brand name.
Again, I will ask? Where will he get the money from?
Aug 5, 2008
Biyani of the future Group now wants to enter into mobile services as a franchisee for virtual network operators by next year.
Another day, another venture announced. Where will the money come from nobody knows.
We will continue to track Biyani’s “Everyday a new venture” strategy.
avinash narula
Hi!
Another venture of Biyani in the offing. He now wants to establsh joint ventres and collaborations with International brands.
Biyani is also planning to open up a store in Ahmedabad which will sell ethnic clothing and accessories specifically targeted towards women. I think in a few days you willprobably hear that he plans of open 100 such stores in the coming years.
I think he has an “Announcement Manager” to keeps coming up with new ideas and announcement to open up something or the other.
My question as usual is where is the money?
Hi!
Biyani in news again. He is also going to building hotels.
For your information, Biyani’s company recorded sales of Rs. 3236 crores in financial year ended June 2007 and earned a profit of just Rs. 126 crores. I am not sure what all Biyani wants to do with just Rs. 126 crores in profit. It is difficult to buy a hotel plot with such an amount.
If you thought Biyani would slow down after announcing so many venture and new retail formats, you are in for a surprise. On August 21, 2008, it was revealed that Biyani’s Future Group is planning to introduce its own brand of skin and beauty care products. I didn’t know that Future group had purchased some stake in a Canada based cosmetic company called “Faces.” They are planning to bring its products to India.
Also, Future Group will takle up consulting projects in the Asia Pacific region to expand its presence in the global markets.
August 22, 2008
Economic Times reported that Future Group is picking up a 40-50% stake in a F&B company which runs a chain of restaurants.
Biyani is just great. From where he gets the money, I still don’t know. Also, it would seem that building brand, buying companies and introducing new retail formats is very easy. By Biyani’’s standards all others not only in the retail business but any business would seem to be going very slow.
Sept 1, 2009
Biyani of the Future Group has announced that its logistics arm is setting up 4 cargo hubs and increasing its fleet size. But he has not indicated where the money is coming from.
October 3, 2008
I am tired of reading about Kishore Biyani. I think he has somebody sitting in his office churning out press releases every day. One day he announces he is forming a separate company for Big Bazaar, another day (Oct 3, 2008) he announces he is shelving the plans. Before Biyani said that it would be easier to grow Big Bazzar if it was seperate company but now he thinks otherwise. All of sudden they find more synergies working as part of the group company. I think since the market is down, Biyani would be hard pressed to find financial support for his IPO. Previously IPOs were an attractive method to collect funds during the boom period which is not the case today. In the boom period, it is easy to fool the investor like what Reliance Power did and what Emaar-MGF were going to do.
I don’t know why but the media is being made a fool by Kishore Biyani. The media is not even asking Kishore about the various plans that he has announced so far. They are not even finding out the progress and they go one printing the press releases. I think the Times of India group has invested some money in his group so they are under obligation to promote Kishore Biyani (even though illegal) but what about the rest of the media?
Now lets talk about their joint venture FootMart with Libeerty Shoes which has not taken off. By the way the joint venture was signed in 2007. Now they are thinking that the format is too large. I think if one investigates one will find that Kishore Biyani is lot of talk. He keeps announcing various plans which do not get anywhere. I think he is spreading himself too thin or trying to occupy various retail format spaces to ward off competition which I do not think is a good strategy.
On Oct 1, 2008, I read that Kishore Biyani is going to launch ther Sach brand with Sachin Tendulkar. If you are launching in-house brands as that is what Sach is, I don’t know why the media is making such a big deal and devoting 1/3rd of the page to this news. Launching a private label is easy because you are going to sell through your stores only and there is no competition. Such news would not even be printed abroad as launching a private label is no news at all.
So you see that in three days (Oct 1,2, and 3), we have have three major press releases by Kishore Biyani. Two of the press releases relate to items for which he had released press releases while launching and now for telling us that what he said before was incorrect or is not working.
Are the media people so stupid and gullible? I hope the media reads what I am saying and at the least tries to analyze Kishore Biyani’s press releases before printing them.
8 Oct 2008
News in Financial Chronicle that Biyani’s Future Group is going to start selling insurance through its malls through a joint venture with a Italian company.
Now actually this is old news as the paper reports that insurance has been available in Future group’s stores since last September. Then why is the paper reporting on old news.
I think the media is so hungry for news on Biyani that they will print anything even if it is old news. Or is there more than what meets the eye.
Hi!
Biyani is at it again. He has opened a store called Ethnicity in Ahmedabad. Another format.
Biyani is also going to open the first stand alone outlet of John Miller in Mumbai.
Hope he has the money to back up his plans!
avinash narula
Hi!
Another of Kishore Byani’s Future Group joint venture called off. Pantaloon Retail is getting out of its joint venture with Alpha Airport Group for airport retailing. Reasons cited are disagreement on operational issues but I think it is Rs. 500 crore minimum guarantee that the JV has to pay to IG International Airport over 39 months.
This is the story of Kishore Biyani. An innovative way to keep himself into news. An press release for announcing a project and then another press release to announce the demise of the project. The media just prints anything that Kishore Biyani puts out without even checking out some basic facts like where is the money coming from to finance all these activities.
Avinash Narula
Hi!
Another news from the Biyani group. Future Brands, its brand consulting arm is developing 15 private labels for electronic and kitchen appliances, skincare products, sports wear and casual wear with an investment of Rs. 50 crores.
Where is the money going to come from?
avinash narula
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June 10, 2008 (Mint Newspaper)
It has been reported that now Biyani wants to launch its own line of choclates. He has decided to drop carrying Cadbury choclates in his stores because he had some issues of discounts with Cadbury. So now he wants to build his own brands. Every time he fights with a supplier he will start building his own brands. However, my point is where is he going to get the money from.
Avinash Narula
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