Amazon rings up India’s fourth largest grocery chain ‘More’ with co-investor Samara Capital

• The deal marks the internet giant’s entry into the food retail business in India.
• ‘More’ will help Amazon set up an offline presence in India similar to its strategy in the US.
• More is the fourth-largest supermarket chain in India behind Reliance Retail Ltd, Future Group and DMart.

Amazon.com Inc along with private equity firm Samara Capital has agreed to buy Aditya Birla Group’s grocery and food retail chain ‘More’, marking the Internet giant’s entry into the food retail business in India.

The deal is valued at about ₹42 billion ($580 million), according to several media reports. Samara will own the majority stake in the entity set up to buy Aditya Birla Retail while Amazon will own the rest. RKN Retail, the operating entity of Aditya Birla Retail will divest its 62% stake in the business to that same entity. The deal has already received board approval from RKN, according to regulatory filings.

ABRL, which launched its food and retail business in 2007, operates over 523 More-branded supermarkets and 20 hypermarkets. It is the fourth-largest supermarket chain in India behind Reliance Retail Ltd, Future Group and DMart.

Offline push

The deal marks Amazon’s plans to make a foray into its food retail business in India, helping it set up an offline presence similar to its strategy in the US where it has acquired grocery chain Whole Foods.

This deal will also help it compete with US mass retail giant Walmart Inc. which recently bought e-commerce company Flipkart Inc. for $16 billion, and with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which is said to be considering a $5 billion (₹350 billion) investment into a joint venture with Reliance Retail, India’s largest retailer in terms of sales.

Amazon has said to have set aside $500 million for its India grocery expansion plans. It has already invested $5 billion into India, its fastest growing market.

Amazon along with other large retailers including Alibaba and Walmart have been adopting a hybrid business model of offline and online to compete.