Indiabulls buys Piramyd Retail

Indiabulls Wholesale Services, the retail arm of Indiabulls Real Estate, has acquired Piramyd Retail, a company owned by the Ashok Piramal Group which runs 35 neighbourhood retail stores and seven lifestyle stores.

Indiabulls Wholesale has acquired 63.92 per cent stake in Piramyd Retail at an enterprise value of around Rs 208 crore, said sources close to the deal. It will be making an open offer over the weekend to acquire an additional 20 per cent of the fully diluted paid-up capital of Piramyd Retail, at Rs 74.73 per share. Thus, it would shell out Rs 174.55 crore for 84 per cent stake in the company.

Piramyd runs a lifestyle retail (Piramyd Megastore) and convenience store chain (Trumart) with 42 stores spread over 10 lakh square foot of retail space in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh.

Indiabulls Wholesale, which is setting up 30 hypermarkets in as many tier-II cities at a cost of Rs 1,500 crore, plans to expand Piramyd's existing network of 42 stores to over 150 stores by the end of next year. With this acquisition, Indiabulls will have a presence across different formats "�hypermarkets, lifestyle and convenience store formats. The acquisition provides Indiabulls 1,300 trained people and 10 lakh square foot of prime retail space.

Pyramid Retail had reported a net loss of Rs 47.81 crore on gross sales of Rs 162.01 crore, taking up its accumulated losses to Rs 55.28 crore. Retailers have been bogged down by high real estate prices and supply chain issues.

Indiabulls Real Estate is developing commercial properties in Lower Parel in Mumbai and recently announced the launch of Indiabulls Centre One, its first building offering 1.4 million square feet for lease. It is also developing over 50,000 residential apartments across India and has over 4000 acres of land bank which it intends to use for commercial and residential development.