INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Reliance's takeover of Future Group's stores has taken Amazon by surpriseMUMBAI: At a large Future Retail supermarket in Mumbai last
week, workers were unloading hundreds of bright blue grocery crates belonging to India's biggest retailer Reliance.Prospective customers
were turned back by security, disappointed at the closed state of the store that still carries the signage of Future's biggest brand, Big
Bazaar, but which will likely soon be rebranded as a Reliance outlet.Across India, similar scenes are being played out as Reliance
Industries, India's biggest conglomerate run by Mukesh Ambani, the country's richest man, presses ahead with a shock de facto takeover
of prized retail real estate that Amazon.com Inc has been keen to take part-ownership of.The high-profile bitter dispute between corporate
titans in which Amazon has sought to block Reliance's planned $3.4 billion purchase of Future Group's retail assets is currently before
Many in Future's management were in the dark about the plans as store employees from all over the country frantically began to call,
according to people with direct knowledge of the matter."It was tense, everybody was panicking
We didn't know who they were
day.At a Future store in Sonipat town in Haryana, announcements were made asking customers to leave as Reliance seized control, one source
source.Citing unpaid payments by Future, Reliance has taken control of operations of some 200 Big Bazaar stores and has plans to seize
another 250 of Future's retail outlets
Combined, they represent the crown jewels of Future's retail network and around a third of all Future outlets.Although Reliance had not
played a large public role in the legal dispute, it had, according to sources, for some months assumed many of the leases held by
appears to have landed what some analysts are calling a coup de grace that spoils Amazon's chances of untangling the transfer of Future's
"The shops are gone."Representatives for Reliance, Amazon and Future did not respond to Reuters queries for this article
was "scaling down its operations" to cut losses although it made no mention of Reliance in its statement
Future Group as a whole has more than $4 billion in debt.Reliance plans to retain Future's employees at the stores it takes over, sources
have said.Amazon, which has a stake in a separate Future Group unit that it argues prevents Future from selling retail assets without its
permission, has called the supermarkets and other stores an "irreplaceable" network in a sector worth $900 billion in revenues annually.The
legal wrangles had over time become increasingly high-stakes and marked by ugly rhetoric
At one point, Amazon sought for Future chief executive Kishore Biyani to be detained in prison for disobeying a legal order
And Future once likened Amazon to Alexander the Great and his "ruthless ambition to scorch the earth".But on Thursday, six days after
Reliance's move, Amazon at a Supreme Court hearing unexpectedly called for cordial talks to end the dispute - a proposal Future agreed
to."People have taken over shops ..
let's at least have a conversation," Amazon's lawyer Gopal Subramanium said.Discussions are expected to begin soon.Whatever the outcome
of the talks, analysts say Amazon had gravely underestimated Reliance."If anybody should have seen this coming, it should have been Amazon
and they should have prepared against it," said Devangshu Dutta of retail consultancy Third Eyesight."Clearly, they didn't."
