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| Sanjiv Goenka in Calcutta on Wednesday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury |
Calcutta, Aug. 11: The RP Goenka group has bought the shares of Spencer’s & Co from the Oakshott family, taking the group’s holding in the company to 93 per cent. The shares of the company have been delisted on the bourses.
Spencer’s & Co is the holding company of the group’s retail business.
“We had an 83 per cent stake in Spencer’s & Co. We have bought another 10 per cent from an overseas partner at Rs 50 a share a couple of months back. The family now controls 93 per cent of the company,” RPG Enterprises vice-chairman Sanjiv Goenka said.
Spencer’s & Co became a public limited company in 1897 with 403 shareholders. Eugene Phillip Oakshott was the first chairman and general managing director. It became an RPG company in 1989 and Sanjiv Goenka was appointed as the chairman.
The Goenkas today launched the ‘Spencer’s Hypermarket’ brand in the city. “The 100-year old Spencer’s will be a new brand for the retail expansion plans of RPG Retail. Even our existing hypermarkets under the Giant brand will be renamed as Spencer’s.”
The group has lined up mega investment plans for Spencer’s Hypermarket at Rs 300 crore. “We are considering an initial public offering to fund the expansion plans in the first part of the next fiscal,” said Goenka.
About 15 facilities will be set up under the Spencer’s Hypermarket. The first one is all set to come up at Vizag this September. Subsequently, hypermarkets will come up in Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore, Vijaywada, Calcutta and Delhi.
The hypermarket will offer food, apparel, beverages, health and beauty, electrical, general merchandise and other household goods.
Goenka said a recent study showed that the Spencer’s brand had an 80 per cent recall and an association of ‘value for money’ among 96 per cent of the respondents.
“In view of RPG’s aggressive expansion plans for large format stores and the possibilities of an overseas expansion, Spencer’s hypermarket has been launched as a brand,” he said.
The RPG group aims to achieve 25 per cent of its turnover from the retail segment in the coming years. Power will contribute 30 per cent, tyres and carbon 35 per cent and the remaining 10 per cent will come from software and other businesses.
The various brands operated by RPG Retail includes Foodworld, Health & Glow, Music World and Giant. The total turnover of the retail trade in 2003-04 was Rs 528.75 crore. The projected turnover in the current fiscal is Rs 750 crore.