Future Group sells half of remaining stake in Pantaloon Fashion

Future Group has sold over half of its remaining stake in Pantaloon Fashion & Retail Ltd through a secondary market transaction earlier this months for circa 21 million dollars. The shares were acquired by a couple of mutual funds.

Two funds managed by mutual fund house Franklin Templeton acquired 8.49 percent stake in fashion retailer Pantaloons Fashion & Retail Ltd, at Rs 165 a piece totalling to over Rs 143 crore.

It is worth of remembering that three years ago Future Group had spun out its apparel retail business from its flagship company Pantaloon Retail (now Future Retail).

In a BSE filing, Pantaloons Fashion said Franklin Templeton has acquired 7,879,902 equity shares of the Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd (ABNL) company. 4,784,239 shares were acquired by Franklin India High Growth Companies Fund and the rest 3,095,663 by Franklin India Prima Fund.

Thus, Kishore Biyani of the Future Group had ceded control of the 65 store-strong retail network of Pantaloons Fashion & Retail to the Kumara Mangalam Birla led Aditya Birla Nuvo more than two years back.

Over the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, Pantaloons Fashion had posted a net sales increase of 12.5 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. The fashion retailer also was able to reduce its net loss.