Spencers Retail loss at Rs 220 cr, losses to continue

CESC subsidiary Spencers Retail, which posted a loss of Rs 220 crore during 2008-09, will continue to lose money for the next 12 months, CESC Vice-Chairman Sanjiv Goenka said today.

"Of course, Spencer's is losing money. It will continue to do so for the next 12 months. The losses as of March, 2009, was Rs 220 crore," Goenka told reporters after the company's AGM.

He said Spencers had been able to reduce costs by about Rs 100 crore through a number of steps like closing 140 stores out of 400 country-wide. "However, we don't plan to close down any more store," he added.

To cut further costs, Spencers has brought down the number of its 'clusters' from 21 to 13. "For example, our stores in Jaipur, Lucknow, Faridabad, Gaziabad and Delhi are being serviced from the cluster in Delhi."

Asserting that Spencers could not be said to be doing badly owing to the losses, Goenka said four new stores opened at Kankinara, Rajamundri, Warangal and Walasarakkam were making profits within two months.

These stores were bringing in Rs 1,000 per sq ft per month, he added.