Shopper’s dream

Mumbai, Sept. 24: Kishore Biyani, CEO of Future Group, has set his sights on mall media — a concept where the excess space within a mall is used for advertising and other media functions.

“We are planning a mall media company called Future Media Ltd, which will look after our mall media business,” Biyani told The Telegraph.

Biyani, however, refused to state when he plans to start the new venture.

In the meantime, the company plans to set up more retail outlets across the eastern region. “We plan to open stores at Siliguri, Kharagpur, Sealdah, Bhubaneshwar, Patna and Ranchi. We are looking at all formats in these towns,” said Biyani.

By November-December, the group plans to set up 100,000-sq-ft Home Town stores and E-Zones in Calcutta. Home Solutions Retail (India) Ltd, a group company of Pantaloon Retail’s E-Zone, deals with consumer durables and electronics. It already has two stores, one in Indore and the other in Bangalore. “We plan to set up six E-Zones in Calcutta,” he added.

It had recently proposed to raise about Rs 960 crore through various channels, including a private placement, a warrants issue, a follow-on public offer or a rights issue and a quasi-equity instrument such as fully or partly-convertible debentures.

Pantaloon Retail plans to expand to 30 million sq ft by 2010.

According to industry sources, the company had close to 3.2 million sq ft at the end of June 2006. It is believed that more than 50 per cent of the 30 million sq ft is already booked.

The company could be looking at around 80 Pantaloon stores by 2010 against the present 20. The total area will go up to 2 million sq ft from 0.5 million sq ft. The company aims to set up around 22 central malls by 2010 from three at present.

The number of Big Bazaar outlets will go up to 225 from 30 by 2010.