Shoppers Stop open to foreign tie-ups for food, grocery

In the wake of government deciding to allow FDI in multi-brand retail, Shoppers Stop said it is open to strategic tie-ups with foreign retailers, particularly in the food and grocery segment.

The firm that runs hypermarket formats under the 'Hypercity' brand said it is more interested in a foreign partner for sourcing and logistics.

"In the food and grocery format -- Hypercity, we could actually review any proposal, which would be coming across to us but currently we are not desperately looking out for any tie-up as such," Shoppers Stop CFO CB Navalkar told analysts in a conference call organised by Edelweiss Capital.

Having said that for a strategic purpose in terms of sourcing and logistics strength of a foreign partner, it would definitely interest the company to look at various options available, he said.

"Any further tie-ups especially in the department store and the other formats will be towards the food and grocery format," he said.

According to Navalkar, international players can bring in best practices in logistics and supply chain, that will benefit an Indian retailer.

"Effectively it will be more towards sourcing and logistics, if you see and the best practices that they have. So, when we are talking about logistics it is also the supply chain and back-end practices which they have. That will be of a definite advantage for us," he said.

Foreign players would come with the best practices which they have experienced but they will have adapted it to the country, he added.

Shoppers Stop's a subsidiary Hypercity Retail currently operates ten hypermarkets across India. Hypercity Retail is at present registering losses and expected to break-even by 2013, as stated by company officials in the past.

Recently, government had approved 51% foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and 100% FDI in single brand.

Shoppers Stop's scrips were trading at Rs 362 per share, up 1.36% from the previous close on the BSE.