Part of the US $ 29 bn., Aditya Birla Group, ABRL is looking to raise funds for expansion. It is reported to be in talks with PE players such as Warburg Pincus, KKR and Goldman Sachs. Chairman of the group Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla said the group was open to the idea of partnering with financial investors, however was not looking at partnership with foreign retailers. It has been reported that the group turned down players as Wal-mart, Carrefour and Tesco in the past. ABRL operates 660 supermarkets and 2 Hypermarkets. It has reported plans to scale up the supermarkets to 2200 by year 2015. Further it plans to open 6-10 hypermarkets in this financial year. ABRL has reported a net loss of Rs 534 cr on a sales turnover of Rs. 1,030 cr in 2008-09. Watch this space for more…

A veteran of the durables, media and retail industry, prior to Reliance, Khanna had done stints in India and the overseas at Hindustan Times, Whirlpool, Sanyo, Casio and Usha.

A Vice-President, Sales, with Hindustan Times at their corporate office in Delhi, Khanna was also the Project Manager for their Mumbai launch and was part of the core team that drove strategy.

After a long stint overseas, Khanna returned to India in 1995 and joined Whirlpool in India, where he spent over eight years. He was Director - Sales and was part of the original core team that took over Kelvinator and launched Whirlpool in India.