Set to create strong Indian brands in FMCG, Household consumer durables & electronics and apparel.

Mumbai, 20th November 2008: The Future Group today announced its plans to create strong Indian brands across categories like FMCG, household consumer durable & electronics and apparel categories, with a projected revenue from consumer brands of Rs 10,000 crore by 2012.

This is a major thrust for the group into the consumption space and reinforces its belief that it has the necessary expertise, knowledge and competence to create Bigger Brands faster.

India is an extremely ‘underbranded’ country, and Future Group has seen an opportunity to rewrite brand rules and gain sizeable market share in the branded products space.

“Having achieved stupendous success in some of our consumer brands, such as Tasty Treat, Fresh & Pure, DJ&C, Koreo etc, we felt that it was the right time to extend it to broader categories such as health & beauty, dairy, apparel, accessories etc. Hence, we have drawn up an ambitious plan of achieving Rs.10000 crores in the next four to five years. Through our consumer brands, we will be able to offer our consumers, best of the products at much more reasonable prices”, said Mr. Kishore Biyani, Group CEO, Future Group.

Among the group’s consumer brands are John Miller, Bare, DJ&C, Buffalo, Knighthood, RIG, Indigo Nation, Scullers, Urbana (in the apparel category); Tasty Treat, Care Mate, Fresh n Pure, Clean Mate (in the FMCG category); Dreamline (in the general merchandise category), Koryo , Sensei and IQIP (in the consumer durables and electronics category), as well as co-creations like Sach, which is a venture along with Sachin Tendulkar.

Recent months have seen enhanced visibility for brands like John Miller, Bare, DJ&C, Fashion @ Big Bazaar, Indigo Nation, Scullers etc, with the group planning marketing investments going forward of close to Rs 200 cr by 2012.

It believes that its retail formats like Big Bazaar, Pantaloons, Food Bazaar, Central, Home Town and eZone among others, where the group is a leader, will provide the necessary marketing platforms which would give the necessary impetus to take its consumer brands into the public domain.

This strategy of building strong Indian consumer brands will also help the group further improve its margins. The group has also put into place very strong alliances to achieve the goals. Tie ups are in place with renowned manufacturers like Cargil and Dynamix, among others.

The group brought on board professionals with vast experience in building brands. These include Mr. S Ravindranath (former Director, Foods – HUL) Mr. Kailash Bhatia (founder of Colour Plus), Mr. Damodar Mall and Mr. Sadashiv Nayak (both formerly with HUL), Mr. Santosh Desai (formerly Head of McCann), Mr. Shashi Kalathil (formerly head of Marketing at Pepsico), and Rachna Agarwal, who heads Indus League.

About Future Group
Future Group, led by its founder and Group CEO, Mr. Kishore Biyani, is one of India’s leading business houses with multiple businesses spanning across the consumption space. While retail forms the core business activity of Future Group, group subsidiaries are present in consumer finance, capital, insurance, leisure and entertainment, brand development, retail real estate development, retail media and logistics.

Led by its flagship enterprise, Pantaloon Retail, the group operates over 11 million square feet of retail space in over 63 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), Pantaloon Retail employs around 30,000 people and is listed on the Indian stock exchanges. The company follows a multi-format retail strategy that captures almost the entire consumption basket of Indian customers. In the lifestyle segment, the group operates Pantaloons, a fashion retail chain and Central, a chain of seamless malls. In the value segment, its marquee brand, Big Bazaar is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern retail. The group’s speciality retail formats include- books and music chain - Depot; sportswear retailer - Planet Sports; electronics retailer - eZone; home improvement chain - HomeTown; and rural retail chain - Aadhar; among others. It also operates the popular shopping portal, www.futurebazaar.com.

Future Capital Holdings, the group’s financial arm provides investment advisory to assets worth over $1 billion that are being invested in consumer brands and companies, real estate, hotels and logistics. It also operates a consumer finance arm with branches in 150 locations. Other group companies include, Future Generali, the group’s insurance venture in partnership with Italy’s Generali Group, Future Brands, a brand development and IPR company, Future Logistics, providing logistics and distribution solutions to group companies and business partners and Future Media, a retail media initiative. The group’s presence in Leisure & Entertainment segment is led through, Mumbai-based listed company Galaxy Entertainment Limited. Galaxy includes leading leisure chains, Sports Bar and Bowling Co. and family entertainment centres, F123. Through its partner company, Blue Foods, the group operates around 100 restaurants and food courts through brands like Bombay Blue, Spaghetti Kitchen, Noodle Bar, The Spoon, Copper Chimney and Gelato. Future Group’s joint venture partners include - US-based stationery products retailers - Staples; Middle East-based Axiom Communications and India-based Blue Foods, Liberty Shoes, Talwalkars’ and Asian Electronics.

Future Group believes in developing strong insights on Indian consumers and building businesses based on Indian ideas, as espoused in the group’s core value of ‘Indianness.’ The group’s corporate credo is, ‘Rewrite rules, Retain values.’

For further information please contact
Mr. Atul Takle
Head - Corporate Communications
Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited
Email: mediarelations@futuregroup.in
Website: www.pantaloonretail.in