CESC to merge with Spencer's holding firm

The Rs 11,000-crore RPG group is planning to merge CESC with Pathik Retail, the holding company of Spencer's Retail.

In an intimation to the stock exchanges, the company has stated that its board will meet on April 17, 2007 to consider a proposal for merging the holding company of Spencer's Retail. Company officials, however, could not be contacted.

Market sources said the merger implied that the group had abandoned the initial public offering plans (IPO) for the retail company.

The group was earlier considering IPO as one of the options for funding its aggressive retail plans. An investment of close to Rs 1,000-1,200 crore had been earmarked for retail expansion throughout the country over the next two years.

Retail has been identified as one of the focus areas for the group and it expects 25-30 per cent of its total revenues to come from its retail business in the near future, from the present five per cent.

In 2006-07, the retail business is expected to touch a turnover of Rs 700 crore from Rs 315 crore in the previous year.

At present, the group has 400 retail outlets, which are expected to go up to 2,000 by 2009 and 4,000 by 2011.

Currently, there are 125 Spencer's stores across 25 cities,comprising eight hypermarkets, five Spencer's Super Stores, 104 Spencer's Daily, three Spencer's Fresh, and five Spencer's Express. The total contracted area for all Spencer's stores across the country is over one million sq ft.

There are four divisions in the retail business, Spencer's Retail, RPG Cellucom, Books & Beyond and Music World.

It is not known how the merger would affect CESC's balance sheet but the CESC counter had been witnessing frantic activity for some time now.

The CESC stock closed at Rs 398 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on the last trading day, up from Rs 375.55 a week ago and Rs 340 a month ago.