ess Trust of India / New Delhi November 27, 2006Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises today announced the signing of an MoU with the world's largest retailer US-based Wal-Mart Stores for a retail joint venture. The MoU will allow the two companies to study and evaluate the retail market in India and identify business opportunities together within the existing guidelines, a company statement said.Bharti and Wal-Mart had been in talks for sometime. In fact, Bharti was also in discussions with British retailer Tesco and Carrefour of France, but negotiations with them did not fructify.Though the statement did not give details, sources said while Bharti would manage the front-end of the retail business, and Wal-Mart would take care of the supply chain, logistics and other back-end operations.We will start rolling out stores from next year and may put up several hundred stores in the next 4-5 years, Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti, said.Bharti, with its deep knowledge of India's fast growing consumer market and Wal-Mart, with its extensive global retail experience, share the same commitment to building relationships with producers in order to provide great quality at reasonable prices to consumers everyday, the statement said.Bharti has a joint venture with ELRo Holdings India
