Future Enterprises Limited (Formerly known Future Retail Limited) was incorporated on 12th October, 1987, headquartered in Mumbai. The Company operates through primarily the Lifestyle' and Value' formats through multiple delivery mechanisms and lines of business, some of them are, fashion, food, general merchandise, home, leisure and entertainment, financial services, communications and wellness. The Company is engaged in the business of manufacturing, trading and leasing of assets.
The Company has stores in 51 cities across the country, constituting over 6 million square feet of retail space. It caters to the Lifestyle' segment through its 35 Pantaloons Stores and 5 Central Malls, as well as its other concepts. In Value' retailing it is present through 78 Big Bazaar hypermarkets, 113 Food Bazaars and other delivery formats.
In the year 1991, the company had launched BARE, the Indian jeans brand. Initial public offer (IPO) was made in May of the year 1992. During the year 1994, the Pantaloon Shoppe, an exclusive menswear store in franchisee format launched across the nation and also the company starts the distribution of branded garments through multi-brand retail outlets across the nation. In the year 1995, the John Miller, formal shirt brand of the company was launched in market. India's family store Pantaloons was launched in Kolkata during the year 1997. In the year 2001, Big Bazaar, Is se sasta aur accha kahi nahin' India's first hypermarket chain was launched, after this, a supermarket chain also launched in the period of 2002 under the name and style of Food Bazaar. The Company had initiated India's first seamless mall in Bangalore in the name of 'Central' in the year 2004. During the year 2005, Fashion Station of the company was launched, it was the popular fashion chain and also in the same year, a little larger' (aLL), an exclusive store for plus-size individuals was launched. In 2006, Future Capital Holdings, the company's financial arm launched its real estate funds Kshitij and Horizon and private equity fund Indivision.
Multiple retail formats including Collection i, Furniture Bazaar, Shoe Factory, EZone, Depot and futurebazaar.com are launched across the nation in the year 2006. The Company had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Blue Foods Private Limited to form a 50-50 Joint Venture Company in July 31st of the year 2006 for setting up food courts and speciality restaurants across the country. In January of the year 2008, the company had entered into joint venture with US based Staples Indian office products business unit, Future Office. As at February 2008, Pantaloon awarded a comprehensive USD 50 million 5-year IT outsourcing contract to Wipro Infotech. The Company initiated its flagship hypermarket retail store 'Big Bazaar' in Barrdhaman city during January of the year 2008. Pantaloons launched an exclusive line of film merchandise 'TASHAN Collection' across all its 40 stores in April of the year 2008.
In 2009-10, the Company realigned its value retail and lifestyle retail business under two separate companies. Accordingly, Value Retail Business operated through the formats such as Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and other value retail formats such as Fashion@Big Bazaar, Fashion Station, Depot, Health Village, Wholesale Club and Navras were transferred to the wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, Future Value Retail Limited (FVRL) with effect from 1st January 2010. The Company also initiated a number of steps towards creating a Retail Pure Play by divesting or demerging a number of non-retail subsidiaries and merging some of the retail businesses.
In 2009-10, the Scheme of Arrangement between Home Solutions Retail (India) Limited (HSRIL) and the Company and their respective Shareholders and Creditors was implemented. As part of consolidation initiative of Consumer Durable, Home Furnishing, Home Improvement, and Furniture Business of its subsidiary, Home Solutions Retail (India) Limited (HSRIL) with the Company, the entire business undertaking except Collection i' of Home Solutions Retail (India) Limited (HSRIL), a 66.86% subsidiary of the Company, were transferred and vested in the Company as a going concern, effective from 1st April, 2009. Further as part of its initiative of removing all non-core non-retail business from the Company, a Demerger exercise was moved under which the Mall Management, & Project Management Business Undertaking were demerged into Future Mall Management Limited (FMML) wholly owned subsidiary of the Company and Mall Asset Management Undertaking & Food Services Undertaking were demerged into Future Merchandising Limited (FML) wholly owned subsidiary of FMML, which became effective on 1 April, 2010.
In 2013-14, 2 new programmes namely 'Step UP' and 'Turning Point' got launched. Big Bazaar Online franchisee network was launched in 2014. In 2013, the Company acquired the Pantaloons Fashion business post its demerger from Future Retail Ltd through the Scheme of Arrangement for Demerger between the Company and Future Retail Limited, which became effective on April 8, 2013. Accordingly, the entire Demerged Undertaking was transferred to and vested in the Company w.e.f July 1, 2012. In terms of the said Scheme, the name of the Company got changed from 'Peter England Fashions and Retail Limited' to 'Pantaloons Fashion & Retail Limited'.
During year 2015-16, the Company announced the the partnership with erstwhile Bharti Retail Limited to combine the businesses of the companies bringing together winning retail brands such as Big Bazaar, easyday, fbb, Food Bazaar, Home Town, eZone and Foodhall. As part of the Scheme of Arrangement, the front end operations of these retail chains were consolidated within Bharti Retail Limited. Subsequently, name of the Company was changed to Future Retail Limited. Thereafter, the Company launched Big Bazaar GenNext stores at Mumbai and Noida. It also launched Big Bazaar Direct to reach out to the consumers that are not catered by physical
stores and book orders on customized tablets.
In 2017-18, the Composite Scheme of Arrangement between the Company and Bluerock eServices Private Limited (BSPL) and Praxis Home Retail Limited (PHRL) and their respective Shareholders, for demerger of e-Commerce Home Retail Business Undertaking of BSPL into PHRL, was effective on April 15, 2016. In terms of the Scheme, the business undertakings of BSPL was transferred to and vested in PHRL. Resulting to this, PHRL issued 6,30,000 9 % Redeemable Preference Shares of the face Value of Rs 100 /- each full paid -up to the shareholders of BSPL.
The Company during 2018-19, acquired 100% equity share capital of Ritvika Trading Private Limited on November 19, 2018 and RTPL was made the wholly owned subsidiary of the Company.