Vishal Retail to set up lifestyle stores

Vishal Retail, which owns hypermarket Vishal Mega Mart, will set up a chain of lifestyle stores tentatively called Vishal Fashion.

R C Agarwal, managing director, Vishal Retail said the 10,000 sqft stores would stock apparel and lifestyle products. "In the apparel section, it will be a mix of our brands as well as other brands," said Agarwal.

The company is likely to open stores in the metros and mini-metros initially, depending upon availability of real estate.

Agarwal is banking on the fact that after food and grocery, largest part of disposable income (7 per cent) is spent on clothes. Also, he is eyeing categories such as jewellery/accessories, which form another 4 per cent of the consumers spend.

In 2007, the company would focus on the expansion of the Mega Marts, following which it would launch the new chain. It will also set up a manufacturing unit in Dehradun, with a capacity of 5 lakh pieces/month. The Rs 10 crore unit will be the company's second unit apart from the one in Gurgaon.

For Mega Mart, Agarwal said the company would end this fiscal at 70 stores from the existing 32. By 2010, the it plans to have over 200 hypermarkets across the country.

It will invest Rs 1250 crore into the hypermarkets business in four years and will try to achieve a turnover of Rs 5000 crore by 2010. He said the company's IPO plans were still on track, but that they were waiting for more suitable market conditions before entering it.