NEW DELHI: One of the country’s largest independent gourmet food retailers Le Marche is on the block and diversified DS Group (or the Dharampal Satyapal Group) is in advanced talks for buying it out, two officials directly aware of the developments said.
The family-owned Marche Retail, which stocks an exhaustive assortment of products ranging from everyday staples, fresh vegetables and fruits, gourmet, bakery, meats, poultry, seafood and frozen foods, has a turnover of close to Rs 100 crore.
“We are in talks with more than one buyer; nothing is conclusive yet,” Le Marche Retail director Nakul Yadav told ET. He said the decision to sell off the family-run group’s food business was to expand and focus on the group’s other businesses which include hospitality, real estate, and luxury salons.
“We could either divest Le Marche as a complete entity or divest part equity. We are exploring all options.” For the cash-rich Rs 7,700 crore plus DS Group, the acquisition would mean immediate access to a large retail footprint with a captive premium target consumer base, including expatriates.
Besides being a top food retailer with large format stores, Le Marche is also the largest of its kind in Delhi- NCR, the company’s website states. The likely deal will be a rare example of a diversified consumer-facing business venturing into gourmet food retail.
This will also be its first acquisition. DS Group has businesses spanning dairy, confectionery, snacks and beverages, hospitality, mouth fresheners, tobacco, packaging, agroforestry, rubber, and infrastructure.
The group’s consumer-facing businesses include brands such as Catch, under which it sells spices, spring water, soda, tonic and flavoured water, Chingles gums, Pass Pass mouth freshener, Pulse candy, and flavoured pan masala under brands Rajnigandha and Tulsi. Dairy brands include Ksheer and Dairymax, while its biggest tobacco brand is Baba.
“We are looking for an opportunity for presence in the retail space. We are in talks with Le Marche. However nothing has been concluded till now,” said a DS Group spokesperson. She added that a potential deal could be in the offing. Le Marche debuted as premium bakery Sugar n Spice in 1989 through a tie-up with Oberoi group.
In 1994, it split with the Oberois to set up its independent bakery in Gurgaon. In 2005), it set up its first Le Marche store. According to information posted on its website, Le Marche, and Sugar n Spice together have six flagship stores in the Delhi-NCR region.
Founded by entrepreneur Naresh Yadav, the Yadav family also owns the high-end Plazzio hotel in Gurgaon and operates luxury salons, besides dealing in real estate and construction. “Leveraging large back-end capabilities in food processing to a front-end retail business has obvious synergies. Besides food retail, such associations can set the pace for a whole lot of consumer-facing innovations in foods,” Samir Kukreja, chief executive of Boutique retail consulting company Tasanya Hospitality.
The DS Group has said in the past that it wants a presence across categories such as sauces, jam, and pickles —a category which has strongly entrenched players such as Nestle, HUL and Cremica. A new report by Euromonitor and KPMG titled ‘Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500’ released earlier this month said that despite the popularity of online stores, in store retailing still accounted for 93% of sales in Asia-Pacific.
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Source: Economic Times
