Carrefour's talks with Bharti fail, company to exit India

With no hope for the FDI in multi-brand retail segment in India and top level executives

quitting the company, French retail major, Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer, is said to be preparing to exit India. The company was in talks with Bharti Group, after the latter broke its joint venture partnership with American retail giant Walmart. However, talks to sell Carrefour’s five wholesale stores based in Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore, Meerut and Agra, to Sunil Mittal's Bharti Group are said to have failed.

This is a first multi-brand retail casualty after the government left the decision to allow foreign retailers to the state governments, while allowing 51 percent investment in the sector. With the BJP and several regional parties announcing their opposition to FDI in retail, overseas players have not much hope left. Now the BJP has announced in its manifesto that it will not allow FDI in multi-brand retail, while promising to push foreign investment in other sectors of the economy.

Foreign retailers such as Carrefour, Tesco and Walmart entered the wholesale cash-and-carry business hoping that multi-brand retail would be opened sooner or later. So far, only Tesco has managed to form a joint venture with the Tata Group. Walmart on the other hand parted ways with Bharti and after announcing investment of Rs 1,328 crores in its India unit, the company announced that its plans to add 50 stores to its existing network of 20 outlets over the next four to five years. Walmart also announced its plans of launching an e-commerce platform for its buyers.