Kishore Biyani's Future: The rise and fall of India's retail tycoon

Three group companies enter corporate insolvency process, marking decline of former retail tycoon

As three Future Group firms go through India’s corporate insolvency process, it is worth looking at the journey of the once-feted retail conglomerate and its founder.

Growing up in Mumbai, Kishore Biyani could have kept working at his family textile shop. But he was ambitious and his drive led him to establish Pantaloons, a fashion retailer in 1994. While the initial stores were franchisees, Biyani decided to strike out independently. Biyani began by opening a 10,000 sq. ft. Pantaloons store in Gariahat, Kolkata, in 1997. The company posted a revenue of over Rs 12,200 crore and had 450 stores in the country in 2011.

In 2001, Biyani began working on Big Bazaar, a chain of hypermarkets emulating the noise and atmosphere of Indian bazaars. The Future Group was growing fast; Biyani was India’s biggest retailer. The National Retail Federation named him ‘Retailer of the Year’ in 2009.

The Future Group’s ascent was disrupted by the 2008 economic crisis, which ended several expansion plans and led to some downsizing in several departments. The business got mighty competitors when the Aditya Birla Group and Reliance Industries moved into the retail sector. After his companies defaulted on loan payments, Biyani took the tough decision to restructure Future and hired external help to reduce debt and decentralise leadership.

The group structure became simple but Biyani was still fighting crises. In 2012, Biyani sold his controlling stake in Pantaloons Retail to Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd., which is now Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. The Future Group holdings were renamed Future Retail India Ltd. Biyani did this to focus Future Group’s business in just a few retail sectors like food, home, and general merchandise.

As the Future Group looked to be recovering, the coronavirus pandemic struck and shuttered India’s retail sector. Biyani’s business tactics of rapid expansion funded through borrowing and immediate diversification, once hailed as bold and visionary, faltered as Future Retail buckled under a debt of Rs 28,000 crore in 2020. Reliance Retail was to purchase Future Retail for over Rs 24,000 crore; but the deal did not materialize due to Biyani's legal tussle with Amazon Inc. This year Biyani resigned as executive chairman and director of Future Retail, the flagship of his group. Within weeks, Future Retail, Future Supply Chain Solutions and Future Enterprises filed for insolvency resolution with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

Biyani, 61, remains the chief executive officer of Future Group. If he can bounce back again, it will be headlines for him again.