Tata Sons to infuse Rs 200 cr in Infiniti Retail

Tata Sons, holding company of the Tata Group, today said it will infuse around Rs 200 crore in its wholly-owned subsidiary company Infiniti Retail that sells consumer durables and electronics goods under Croma chain of stores.

Infiniti Retail would be using the funds to set up stores in newer locations and also to scale up its workforce.

"We have received Rs 200 crore from Tata Sons. The board had approved the same in December last. We will be using the funds in phased manner over the next two fiscals to expand our store network and also invest in scaling up the work force," Infiniti Retail CEO Ajit Joshi told PTI here.

This is the third tranche of funds the company has received from Tata Sons, which has so far infused around Rs 280 crore in Infiniti Retail since 2006.

The company sells over more than 160 brands of electronic and white goods in its 61 Croma stores under three formats -- Large (8,000 sq ft and above), Mid size (4,000-8,000 sq ft) and Zip (1,000-1,500 sq ft).

"We plan to enter into new locations this year and the focus would be in cities like Chandigarh, Mohali and Ludhiana. We also plan to penetrate deeper in South in places like Mysore, Madurai, Mangalore, Selam and Trichy. While plan to open large formats in new cities, cities, where we are already present would have zip format," Joshi said.

The company plans to add another 30-50 Croma stores in FY12. Besides, it plans to open one outlet each in Bangalore and Hyderabad airport soon, Joshi said adding that the deals have not been signed yet.

Currently, it has three such outlets in Delhi and two in Mumbai.

On growth, Joshi said the company witnessed a 50% jump in its turnover at Rs 1,530 crore in FY10 as against Rs 1,021 crore in the year-ago period, and expects a healthy growth even this year.