Raheja group co to invest Rs 1,400 crore in retail by ’10

The Mumbai-based Raheja group has planned to set up at least eight malls, including one in the luxury category, by 2010. It would open one each at Navi Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderbad & Cyberabad and two each at Pune and Baroda.

While it is opening the Navi Mumbai facility in the next couple of months, the malls at Cyberabad and Hyderabad would open by March 2009. Typically, the malls would have a retail space in the range of 4-6 lakh sqft.

“These developments will have investments in the region of Rs 1,400 crore,” said Kishore Bhatija, chief executive officer of Inorbit Malls.

Inorbit runs a 6 lakh sqft mall at Malad in Mumbai at present.

Retail venture of the group includes departmental store chain Shopper’s Stop and HyperCity Retail-the hypermarket. It is also coming up with value format malls branded as ‘the village’.

“We are studying a model called ‘bridge to luxury’ where we would try to address those who aspire to very high-end brands. We have not yet developed the model fully, so it will be difficult to give details about the retail mix for such malls,” Bhatija said. He was present in the city at a seminar organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

The group is also looking at possible acquisitions, as it wants to expand inorganically as well. “So far our growth has been organic. But we are now looking at opportunities for possible takeovers,” Bhatija said.

“We would look at malls that are either under construction or at the planning stage. Land availability is not that easy, so one has to be open to opportunities,” he said.