Big Shopping Centres (BSC), a company that currently operates malls in the US, Israel and Spain, announced its entry into India’s retail market. It plans to develop 60 stores across the country in the next 10 years with a combined investment of about Rs 9,600 crore.Big India Malls Pvt Ltd (BIMPL) would develop the shopping malls over 24 million sq ft of retail space. BIMPL is a joint venture company between Israel-based BSC and US-based Lehman Brothers’ wholly-owned special purpose vehicle BIG Mauritius Holdings.“For this venture, we have earmarked an investment of $2.4 billion,” said Eitan Bar Zeev, director, BIMPL, while talking about the company’s plans for India. “The initial plan is to roll out 60 shopping centres in the country, which will be based on our ‘open mall’ concept.”Initially, the company would roll out the first mall at Thane, Mumbai, in November this year, spread over 8.5 acres with a retail space of 5.5 acres. “For the ground floor, we have assigned retail chain ‘Hypercity’ as the anchor tenant, while the upper floor will have shops of different retailers,” Zeev said.Open mall is a new concept to India, where parking is free and the structures will be up to maximum ‘ground plus one’ level with large free area. There will be no entertainment or ‘hang around’ zones as promoters are keen on showcasing it as a hardcore shopping area. After Thane, the company plans to launch such malls in Bangalore, Vadodara, Nagpur, Bhopal and Pune.“The Bangalore mall will be completed by 2009,” Zeev said. “Besides metros, our main focus will be Tier II and Tier III cities.” He said shopping centres would be constructed on an average land area of 15-20 acres with retail spaces of about 4,00,000 sq ft. The company expects revenues to the tune of Rs 25 crore per year.Currently, BSC holds 75 per cent stake in BIMPL through direct and indirect route, while the remainder is with Lehman Brothers. “In the future, it will be a 50:50 JV as most of the investment in the coming days will be funded by them,” Zeev said.
