India Retail News.

Reliance Retail will setup Toy stores in India in association with UK based Hamleys owners of Noah's Ark chain of stores. Reliance has explored to venture with American Toys'R'Us before striking a deal with Hamleys. It is believed that Reliance pipped Pantaloon in the negotiations.

Reliance plans to open Hamleys in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai initially and each store is expected to be around 25,000 sft in size. It is still not clear about the holding structure in the JV due to FDI regulations. Since Hamleys is a single brand retailing, they can hold upto 51%. Hamleys operates one of the world's largest toy stores in London occupying the entire 7 floors of the building.

This is Reliance Retail's third major deal with UK company after Marks & Spencer and Vision Express.

Nilgiris a century old South based company with specialization in dairy, bakery and retail areas is all set to enter Andhra pradesh by the end of Sept-08.

Nilgiris currently operate 100 stores across Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kochi. It plans to open 10 stores in Hyderabad and have set an ambitious target of 400 stores by 2010.

Mr. Prabhu, Director of Niligir Dairy Farms said,

We want to be sizable player in a certain market rather than spreading ourselves across India. We see our future growth coming from convenience model and expanding our portfolio of private labels.

Nilgiris is settin up a hi-tech distribution center one each in Bangalore and Chennai. PE firm Actis has pumped in Rs 300 crore into Nilgiris so far. If you are on Brigade Road in Bangalore, then don't forget to visit Nilgiris for some quick and real mouth watering pastries. This store hold record for churning out the best and biggest X'Mas cakes.

Nalli - Premiun Silk Saree retailer from Chennai has launched Nalli Next chain of stores to be located in premium upscale markets offering apparels and soft furnishings. The first Nalli Next store opened for business in Alwarpet, Chennai spread on a 4,000 sft showroom. Bangalore, the retail destination of India will open a 15,000 sft Nalli Next showroom very soon.

Nalli Next will offer unique saris, designer sarees, apparels for marriage, parties, corporate events and casual wear as well.

Nalli group also unveiled home furnishing retail chain under the brand name, Next Living. Nalli already has an export oriented manufacturing unit in Noida, Delhi for home furnishings.

Reliance Capital Ltd funded, Kids retailer, Gini & Jony is on a major expansion spree. Giny & Jony currently has 141 stores and would like to take the count to 560 by 2010.

Giny & Jony currently retails kids wear. However, the company has unveiled its plans for entering the toys and utilities segment for which its is in talks with various international brands to bring them to India. Most of Giny & Jony stores are standalone stores and the company didn't make any comment on opening shop-in-shop concept.

Reliance Capital holds 22% stake in the company. Giny & Jony will invest Rs 150 cr for expansion ahead of its IPO.

Withstanding the slowdown in the Indian Realty, especially Retail development, DLF has mega plans to build mega malls in Tier-I cities.

The company is planning to launch 7-8 new malls this year. Three of the malls are coming up in Delhi NCR and one in Chandigarh. The size of each mall is expected to be between 300,000 to 400,000 sft. DLF leases space in Mall to retailers.

With the current slowdown, we have informed reports that retailers are re-negotiating for rentals in malls and in some cases moving out.