Reliance Retail to acquire B2B wholesaler Metro Cash & Carry for ₹2,850 crore

• Reliance Retail Ventures has entered into an agreement to acquire 100% equity in popular business-to-business wholesaler Metro India for ₹2,850 crore.
  
• Metro India currently has 31 large format stores in 21 cities across the country.
  
• It has 3 million customers in the B2B segment, of which 1 million are frequent buyers, according to the company.
  

Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL), the retail arm of Reliance Industries, has entered into an agreement to acquire Metro Cash & Carry India (Metro India) for ₹2,850 crore.

Metro India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of German company Metro AG and has 31 large format stores in 21 cities across the country operating under the brand name ‘Metro’. It caters to the business-to-business (B2B) segment and has a reach of over 3 million customers.

“The acquisition will further strengthen Reliance Retail’s physical store footprint and ability to better serve consumers and small merchants by leveraging synergies and efficiencies across supply chain networks, technology platforms and sourcing capabilities,” said a joint statement.

The agreement involves Reliance Retail acquiring 100% equity of Metro India. The two companies said in a joint statement that the deal is expected to close by March 2023, subject to regulatory clearances.

Reliance Retail has a network of 16,617 stores across the country, according to the company’s Q2 FY23 filings. It reported a 36% year-on-year increase in net profit to ₹2,305 crore during the quarter, while revenue came in at ₹64,396 crore.

On the other hand, Metro India with 31 stores reported a revenue of ₹7,700 crore in the financial year 2021-22 (ended September 2022), which is also its best performance since the company began its operations in 2003.

“We believe that Metro India’s healthy assets combined with our deep understanding of the Indian merchant/kirana ecosystem will help offer a differentiated value proposition to small businesses in India,” said Isha Ambani, director, RRVL.

The acquisition of Metro India will not only give Reliance Retail access to the 31 large format stores with a multi-channel platform, it will also give the company access to 3 million B2B customers, of which 1 million are frequent buyers.

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