NEW DELHI: Bharti Retail (Pvt.) Ltd. unveiled the roadmap for its retail venture on Monday envisaging an investment of $2.5 billion with expectation of revenue of $4.5 billion (about Rs. 20,000 crore) from this business by 2015. The first retail outlet will be opened in the first quarter of the coming year.

"Our plan is to invest $2.5 billion by 2015 and open stores across all major cities," Bharti Enterprises Joint Managing Director, Rajan Bharti Mittal, said while rolling out the company's ambitious retail venture roadmap before media persons.

While clarifying that this investment was only for setting up front-end stores, he said the company had a separate investment plan for real estate, which would be announced shortly after deciding on the model to be adopted.

Once the model is selected and decision made whether to buy the property or to get the land on lease, the other investment plan would be announced. In fact, the group company, Bharti Real Estate, was looking at all options, Mr. Mittal said, adding that modalities for its back-end linkage, including its joint venture with the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart, were being worked out.

He said a high-level team from Wal-Mart was expected this week in India and the details of the back-end chain and the company's tie-up with Wal-Mart would be announced in due course. While Bharti would manage front-end of the retail venture, Wal-Mart would be involved in the back-end, including logistics, supply chain and cash-and-carry, he added.

He said the company was looking at 10 million sq. ft. of retail space, which would include hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores and would provide employment to about 60,000 people. The company would open multi-format retail outlets in all cities with a population of about one million.

In the context of the company's controversial tie-up with Wal-Mart, he insisted that their retail venture was no different from such businesses floated by other Indian companies such as Reliance and it fully complied with government norms. "We are no different from other Indian companies which have ventured into retail. Birlas, Tatas, Reliance and the Future Group have done it."

To a question whether the government had sought information from the company on the tie-up with Wal Mart, Mr. Mittal said: "Yes, we were asked and we have given them all details. We are absolutely in line with the policy and guidelines announced by the government."

Over the possibility of using the Wal-Mart brand on its front-end stores, Mr. Mittal said as per the current guidelines it was allowed to do so and cited the cases of Dominos, Pizza Huts that were operating under their brands in India.

Asserting that that the guidelines do not speak otherwise, he, however, added, "we are conducting a consumer survey and depending on the outcome we will take a decision (on the branding)".

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