India Retail News.

Spanish Apparel brand Zara is all set to bid good bye to beleaguered real estate company DLF as it will embrace Trent. Trent has pipped DLF for the second time now, the first instance where Arcadia dumped DLF.

The Tata's seem to find success in copying Mukesh Ambani's business model. At first in the Telecom venture [abandoning partnership in Birla AT&T, Tata and going solo in CDMA] and now in Retail :-) In line with Reliance Retail's policy of forging JVs with foreign partners, Trent and Zara will form a JV, where the former will hold majority stake. They plan to focus by opening stores at high-traffic locations.

Zara is a part of $15 bn Inditex group which operates world class brands such as Massimo, Dutti, Pull and Bear etc. Zara's business success has been mainly due to itsdirect control over most stores it operates, the same is expected to happen in India as well.

Related Reading:
Trent scouting for Global Premium Apparel Retailer
Trent - Sisley JV in India

It is well known perception amongst retail fanatics that Mukesh Ambani and Kishore Biyani are arch rivals. However, to cool the stand off, Indus League Apparels, a company in which Kishore's Future Group has bought majority stake plans to enhance relation with Reliance Retail.
Indus League is founded by Ms. Rachna Aggarwal. Indus has launched the Contra brand via Reliance and Private Club through Big Bazaar. The company now plans to launch casual denim and two formalwear brands for men to be sold exclusively through Reliance Hypermart and Big Bazaar formats. The denim is likely to be branded as J Walk and Big Bazaar is the only authorized point of sale.

Indus is also in talks with French brand, Daniel Hechter which is launching next year in India under an exclusive deal. Daniel Hechter will be sold through Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle.

Reliance Retail has a subsidiary, Reliance Brands which is licensing global brands to market in India. Will Big Bazaar or Pantaloon Retail opt-in for any of these ?