In a move that could help boost its retail presence, Videocon Industries through its retail chain, NEXT has acquired Planet M, the music and entertainment retail arm of media house Bennett, Coleman & Co. (owner of The Times of India, The Economic Times), for Rs 200 crore.
Planet M has 150 stores across 42 cities in India and is mainly into organised music retail and home entertainment business. Off late, it has also seen good sales of iPod and XBox from its stores. Main competitor of Planet M in India is RPG’s Music World.
With Planet M under its fold, Videocon could increase the number of stores to over 1,000 and synergise the operations with its existing 500 stores of Next. Videocon aims to increase the turnover from its retail business to around Rs.2000 crore of which half of it would be contributed by Planet M alone.
Bennett, Coleman sold Planet M as it is disposing off its non-core business activites though it is unlikely to sell real estate owned by Planet M.
For Videocon, this would mean that it could use its back-end strength to venture into front-end retail and also diversify into other businesses such as digital downloads and DVD rentals.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/india/corporate/videocon-buy-out-planet-m-retail-stores/1747/
