Pantaloon plans one store a day this quarter

Pantaloon Retail plans to open a store every day during the current quarter and is expecting retail space shortage in the near future, said a top executive of the company. Pantaloon plans to open 88 stores across different formats or 1.05 million square feet of retail space. The company's financial year ends on June 30.

In FY11, the company has opened 177 stores or 2.26 million sq ft of space. The company had booked around nine million sq ft in the last financial year. “Not much space is coming up. We expect there will be a huge shortage of space in the next 3-4 years. We have booked a lot in the last one year. If we do not book now, when will we book it?” said Kishore Biyani, chief executive, Future Group, which runs 15 million sq ft of retail space.

Major openings which are lined up are in its mall concept, Central (0.58 million sq ft), and its hypermarkets, Big Bazaar, (0.76 million sq ft), Biyani said. “We are also opening 20 stores of Fashion@Big Bazaar this year.”

Biyani said the group will invest Rs 900 crore to open stores in the next three years. “We plan to develop around three million sq ft, of which Big Bazaar will account for 70 per cent. We are also exploring new segments like sports, food and fashion.”

“They are booking stores and opening more stores in anticipation that they may see more competition for retail space once FDI opens up. They want to cement their leadership position," said a retail consultant, requesting anonymity.

The group had, however, exited 0.01 million sq ft of space in Ezone, the consumer durable and electronics format of the company. “We have closed stores of Ezone in three cities, including Indore and Ahmedabad. We want to focus only on the top seven cities in this format,” said Biyani.

The home business of the company had recorded a negative growth in same store sales in the last quarter at -4.5 per cent. “We have changed the strategy in this business and we are seeing a growth of 20-30 per cent.”