Thursday, 20 September 2018

Samara-Amazon bags Aditya Birla Group's retail chain More for Rs 42 bn

Samara-Amazon bags Aditya Birla Group retail chain 'More' for Rs 42 bn

Almost 11 years after setting up the food and grocery retail business, Aditya Birla Group on Wednesday signed a deal to sell Aditya Birla Retail (ABRL) to home-grown private equity fund Samara Capital and global e-commerce giant Amazon.

The Group did not disclose the value of the deal, but sources said it was around Rs 42 billion. The buyers, they said, would take Rs 40 billion debt in ABRL, which runs stores under the ‘More’ brand.

The Birlas are likely to end up with losses amounting to Rs 70 billion in the venture, given that they had invested Rs 110 billion of personal capital, by way of both equity and debt of ABRL, said sources.

ABRL took more than Rs 10 billion of debt from various unlisted group companies. The debt, as it is not being taken over by Samara and Amazon, has to be written off. ABRL’s accumulated losses, which crossed Rs 67 billion in 2016-17, may have risen further in the year ended March 2018. The company’s financials for 2017-18 are not available.

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