Reliance Industries moves CCI for Future Group deal nod

NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has approached the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for approval of its deal with the Future Group (FEL). Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), a unit of RIL, notified the CCI proposing that the relevant markets for the fair trade regulator’s assessment of the deal should be ‘market for retail in India’ and ‘market for B2B sales in India’. The filing with CCI was made late on Monday.
In August, RIL announced the deal to acquire the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group as going concerns on a slump sale basis for Rs 24,713 crore. The sale would include key brands like Big Bazaar, fbb, Foodhall, Easyday, Nilgiris, Central and Brand Factory.

The manner in which the CCI evaluates the deal will set a precedent given that the deal includes not only online and offline businesses but also covers a range of sectors including retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing.

Further, within retail there is the organised (supermarkets, retail chains, e-commerce) and unorganised sector (locally run stores), which is segmented by products in terms of electronics, food, groceries, apparel and so on.