For this, the company is currently in talks with some of the major Indian business groups including a Delhi-based construction company. "We are scouting for a partner who has the same synergies as the MCC group," company country head Minakshi Murari Batra told The Financial Express. She, however, refused to reveal the name of the company MCC was close to signing the deal with.

The group, which has 106 companies dabbling into three broad divisions - financial, distribution and industrial -, is present in the country through its liaison office set up in early March this year. Other than furniture, MCC's Indian liaison office is currently exploring business possibilities for the Group companies in sectors such as home appliances, PET stretch blow moulding machines, bus building equipment, machine tools and others.

MCC's furniture business is worth $100 million and is represented by two group companies - Coinma Coop (for office) and Danona Coop (home). The company has a manufacturing facility in Spain. Exports to Europe contribute 60 per cent to the turnover of the furniture business.

In India, however, the company plans to follow a different business model. Firstly, the company plans to set up an assembling plant - which would be the only plant outside its headquarters in Spain - for its furniture.

It also plans to make the Indian facility the hub to export to Asian as well as South Asian markets. "We have selected India as the manufacturing hub for the Asian region," Ms Batra said and added that it also plans to develop a local vendor supply chain to source other furniture assembling components.

In another changed strategy, MCC plans to sell `branded' furniture in India through a combination of company-owned retail outlets and franchisee stores.

"Our research revealed that Indian consumer was much more brand-educated than his European counterpart," she said. Worldwide, the company sells through distributors who in turn market it through multibrand retail outlets. The group has just one company-owned retail outlet for its furniture located in its headquarters in Spain.

The total furniture market in the country is estimated to be worth Rs 9,000 crore. Though branded furniture at the moment is small - worth Rs 90 crore - but is currently growing at the rate of 20 per cent per annum. Some of the players currently present in this market are Usha Lexus, Gautier, and others. Targeted at the top end, MCC hopes to capture at least 10 per cent of the branded furniture market in the first year of its launch. MCC is the world's largest successful industrial cooperative. The World Bank is studying its methods of Cooperative behaviour for application in other parts of the world. The group has three R&D centers catering exclusively for mechatronics, machine tools and thermoplastics. It also has its own bank and insurance company.