Home Retail Group Plc, owner of Britain's Argos and Homebase stores, has signed a franchise arrangement to develop its Argos retail format in India and a separate deal to buy a stake in an Irish retailer.
Home Retail Group Plc, owner of Britain's Argos and Homebase stores, has signed a franchise arrangement to develop its Argos retail format in India and a separate deal to buy a stake in an Irish retailer.
The company would buy a 33 per cent stake in Irish homewares retailer Home Store + More and would invest 7 million pounds ($13.7 million) to expand the out-of-town homewares chain.
Home Retail said its deal with an Indian joint venture owned by Shoppers' Stop Ltd. and Hypercity Retail India Private Ltd. would give Argos an initial foothold in the rapidly growing retail market in India, which has a population of 1.1 billion.
To offset slowing consumption at home, global retailers such as Wal-Mart, French supermarket giant Carrefour and Germany's Metro are pushing to enter India's $300 billion retail industry, which is forecast to grow to $637 billion by 2015.
Home Retail said Argos, one of Britain's biggest Internet retailers, will be launched towards the end of the year under the 'HyperCITY-Argos' brand, initially in the Mumbai region, and provide its brand, catalogue and multi-channel expertise.
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