Bharti Wal-Mart may invest $100 mn in 4 yrs in opening stores

Amritsar, May 30: Bharti Wal-Mart, the joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and US-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc, is likely to invest about 100 million dollars in the next 3-4 years to open 15 cash-and-carry stores in India.
"We have several facilities coming up in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh," Bharti Enterprises Vice-Chairman and MD Rajan Mittal told reporters.

Bharti Wal-Mart opened its first store here today and would invest about 6-7 million dollars in opening of each store. The next store is likely by the end of this year.

"...Investment in each store will be about 6-7 million dollars without land and building...I am only talking about the insight of the store," Mittal said.

He said that each store would come up on about 50,000-1 lakh square feet and would provide employment to about 5,000.

The joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores Inc was inked in 2007.

The company had last year announced that its cash-and-carry stores would be opened under the brand name of 'BestPrice Modern Wholesale'. PTI