Kishore Biyani

Kishore Biyani, who was conferred “International Retailer of the Year” Award by the prestigeous US National Retail Federation (NRF), could truly be considered as the pioneer of multi-brand modern (organised) retail in India.

Born in a middle class marwari trading family, Kishore Biyani, began his career selling stonewash fabric to small shops in Mumbai. After having a brush with film making and festival organising, he went on to launch Pantaloons, the biggest listed retailer of the country, today.

Pantaloons is credited with launching many retail formats in value and lifestyle retailing under some of the best known retailing brand names in the country, including Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Central, e-zone, and Home Town.

While, most successful men and women write their biographies post their retirement, Kishore Biyani has gone ahead with writing his biography, “It Happened in India,” if one could say so, at the beginning of his retailing career.

“It happend in India” is the story of this maverick entrepreneur’s experiments with exploration of business the Indian way, his uncanny insight into the mind of Indian consumer and his simple philosophy of - Rewrite Rules, Retain Values.

As expected, the book even before being widely available, has become a success story in its own right. According to media reports, while 10,000 copies (largest ever for an Indian book) of the book have already been sold on the day of its launch, the publishers are also confident of selling the initial lot of 30,000 books in a few days. In another first in the history of publishing in India, this is the first indigenous book which has had a print run of 200,000 copies.

A Way to a Bright Future

Not content with just being called the king of organised retail in India, 47-year-old Kishore Biyani decided to venture into the financial services segment in 2005 by promoting Future Capital Holdings Ltd (FCH) along with 37-year-old Sameer Sain, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs International.

The company has three primary lines of business — investment advisory services, retail financial services and research.

Last week, FCH’s maiden public issue closed with a subscription of around 132 times over the float size of 6.42 million shares.

The issue, which is expected to raise between Rs 450 crore and Rs 490 crore, has done well, especially in the light of the bloodbath the Indian stock market has witnessed since.

For market watchers, Biyani is now a trusted name, and that is perhaps why Future Capital, a company with a limited operating history and results, was able to garner so much investor interest.

A plausible answer may lie in Biyani demonstrating the ability to rope in and delegate work, something that was held against him a few years back.

For FCH, he has put together an experienced management team including Dhanpal Jhaveri, former director at Vedanta Resources, Sanjiv Gupta, former CEO of Coca Cola (India and Southwest Asia), Rakesh Makkar, former Citifinancial India CFO and Roopa Purushothaman, the co-author of the “Dreaming with BRICS” paper.

At the board level, Biyani has roped in heavyweights — former Sebi chairman GN Bajpai and leading chartered accountant Shailesh Haribhakti — as independent directors. Like the key managerial staff, both Bajpai and Haribhakti have been granted stock options.

Biyani is now looking at hiving off Big Bazaar, the hypermarket format, which accounts for a majority of the flagship revenues. That is another hint of how far this strict vegetarian with vaulting ambitions has come.

He may continue to watch things closely, but the sheer pace and size of the expansion means that Biyani is now thinking out of the box to keep growing and besting competition. That includes the world’s largest retailer Wal-Mart, which is entering the Indian retail space with the Bharti group.

Having sold the issue on the possibility of future growth prospects in FCH, all eyes will be on Biyani to deliver on the promise of the “unique and differentiated business model” of the company.

For the masses, this should mean a future in which a visit to the neighbourhood mall is not just about groceries and clothes, but also about buying life insurance, home loans and transferring money. In that, Biyani will have competition, from the elder Ambani brother, Mukesh, whose Reliance Retail is also believed to be looking at this business.