Shoppers'' Stop To Increase Holding In HyperCity

The K Raheja Corp-owned Shoppers'' Stop is expected to decide by the year-end to increase its stake in HyperCity to 51 per cent as part of plans to make it the holding company of the group''s retail ventures. At present, it holds 19 per cent stake in HyperCity. The group is investing around Rs 1,100 crore for expansion to increase its retail space to six million square feet across all its retail formats in next three years.

Shoppers'' Stop can buy additional 32 per cent stake by December at a price including investment cost (made in HyperCity) plus 10 per cent interest on it. Raheja Corp has been taking steps to make Shoppers'' Stop its holding company and recently it bought out ICICI Venture''s 49 per cent stake in Crossword bookstores, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the departmental chain. The current number of 22 Shoppers'' Stop stores will go up to 49 and 19 new Hypercity stores were planned in next three years taking the total number to 20. While the number of stores of the other formats will go up to 250 from the current 70 stores by 2010-11.