Big Bazaar plans to open 15 stores by Nov end

Retail chain Big Bazaar plans to open 15 more stores by November end, some of them in new markets, at an investment of Rs 1,500-1,600 crore.     

With this, Big Bazaar, a subsidiary of the Kishore Biyani-spearheaded Pantaloon Group, will have 112 stores pan-India by November, a top company official said.      

Big Bazaar is targeting a network of 145 stores by June 2009.     

"We have zeroed in on several new and existing markets for the 15 stores that we plan to open by end-November. The investment will be in the range of Rs 1,500-1,600 crore," Big Bazaar's CEO Rajan Malhotra said here.     

The stores would be set up in places such as Mysore, Pune, Cuttack, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Agra, Faridabad, Surat, Nashik, Mumbai, Delhi and Solapur, Malhotra said, adding that in some locations two stores would be opened.     

The retail chain would be extending its footprint into new markets such as Mysore, Cuttack, Chandigarh, Faridabad and Solapur.

"These are new markets for us. We have done our research and expect these stores to perform well," Malhotra said.     

Presently, there are 97 Big Bazaar stores with the 98th and 99th to be opened in Mysore and Pune.

"Our 100th store will be opened in Cuttack market — all the three stores are likely to be set up by mid-September," he said.     

Big Bazaar wanted to mark its century by opening its 100th store in the same location where it had launched its first ; Kolkata, "but there were some issues and hence, we moved ahead in search of other markets," Malhotra said.