After retail, Kishore Biyani's Future Group is now planning to come up with a mega food park near Ahmedabad in partnership with Gujarat based instant drink maker Rasna.
Biyani's Future Ventures India Ltd (FVIL), is setting up a mega food park in Tumkur district of Karnataka. "We plan to set up such mega food parks across the country,two more are planned in Gujarat and Bihar respectively. As for the Gujarat park, we are working with a local partner, Rasna. We have already floated an expression of interest (EoI) for the same", said Kishore Biyani at the sidelines of an event announcing the IPO (initial public offering) plans of Future Ventures in the city. He added that land has not yet been allotted.
Piruz Khambatta, managing director of Rasna could not be reached for a comment. Future Ventures' Tumkur mega food park is coming up with an investment of Rs 140 crore, of which FVIL is investing close to Rs 90 crore, and the remaining is a grant from the state government.
The 100 acre park will come up near the National Highway 4 and Chennai-Bangalore-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. The first plant at Tumkur would be operational within the next 15-20 months.
"It will be an integrated food park. Producers from a 250 kilometer radius around the park will bring in their produce, part of which will go into retail, and part into processing. We have invited vendors to set up their processing units at the park itself as well as packaging units", Biyani said adding that the Gujarat park would be modelled along the same lines.
Retail in Gujarat, he said, was growing at a rate above the national average. "In the Gujarat retail market there has been a churning a few years back in the fringe players went out. We stayed put. Our entire back-end operations happen from here, we employ close to 1000 people for that.Now we are planning to come up with more stores in Ahmedabad."
Meanwhile,Biyani has launched the IPO of FVIL to raise around Rs 750 crore from the market. The price band of the issue is fixed at Rs 10-11 per equity share. The issue will open on April 25 and close on April 28, and the shares would be subsequently listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Future Ventures has invested close to Rs 745 crore in 13 companies in the past few years, and the net turnover of these companies combined is Rs 826 crore at present. "There is no debt on the books of these companies", Biyani informed.
This is the third IPO from the Future Group after Pantaloon Retail in 1992 and Future Capital in 2008.
