Reliance Retail has sent notices to Future Group to terminate the lease of an additional 835 Future Retail stores and 112 Future Lifestyle stores amid the ongoing tussle between the three retail giants – Amazon, Future and Reliance. This comes weeks after Reliance had taken over 200 Future Group stores to rebrand and open those as Reliance stores.
Future Group’s Future Retail Ltd, in an exchange filing, said that the company has received termination notices from Reliance Group in relation to the sub-leased properties. Future Retail said that it has received notices in respect of 342 large format stores, including Big Bazaar, Fashion @ Big Bazaar, and 493 small format stores such as Easy Day and Heritage stores, of the Company.
“These stores has been historically contributing approx. 55 per cent to 65 per cent of retail revenue operations of the Company. As of now these stores are not operational for stock and inventory reconciliation,” it said in the filing.
Further, Future Group’s another company Future Lifestyle Fashions also said that it has received termination notices from Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance with regards to a total of 112 stores including 34 Central stores and 78 Brand Factory stores of the Company.
In both these filings, Future Group maintained that it is in a discussion with Reliance Group to “maintain status quo and for safeguarding the interest of various stakeholders”.
Earlier, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief justice NV Ramana had given Amazon and Future Group 12 days time to reach a possible solution to the ongoing tussle between the retail groups. Amazon has stalled Future’s $3.4 billion asset sale to Reliance Industries since 2020, maintaining that it was in violation of its 2019 deal in which it had invested $ 200 million in Future Group. Future has been denying any wrongdoing.