11 Facts About Kishore Biyani

Kishore Biyani is the founder of retail businesses such as Pantaloon Retail and Big Bazaar.

Kishore Biyani's success continued with the opening of a series of stores under the Big Bazaar brand name in 2001.

Kishore Biyani, who has admitted to making "whimsical decisions", had ignored the prevailing opinion of modelling retail businesses on those in the West and had instead concentrated on concepts that were familiar to India.

Kishore Biyani was running the largest retailer in the country and was named as retailer of the year by the National Retail Federation, which at one earlier point had refused even to admit him.

Kishore Biyani was facing a threat from the much larger resources of conglomerates such as Aditya Birla Group and Reliance Industries, both of whom had signalled an intention to move into the retail sector.

Sales plunged; bankers who until then had queued up at his offices started to call in their loans; mutual funds that had invested in his companies buckled under redemption pressures and decided to get out; sources of foreign capital dried; his market capitalization plunged two-thirds in a matter of six months, and Kishore Biyani who had invested way ahead of the cash flows from his network found himself trapped.

Kishore Biyani reacted to the crisis with measures such as a considerable reduction in the numbers of his mid-level management staff and a restructuring of his corporate interests.

Kishore Biyani appointed a cousin, Rakesh Biyani, more methodical and patient than himself, to take over his responsibility for the retail business and in particular to resolve issues with the poor supply chain and internal distribution logistics that had resulted from rapid expansion.

Kishore Biyani announced that there were plans for a further restructuring of parts of the business to enable it to become debt-free by March 2013.

Kishore Biyani has had stakes in financial services, such as the Future Capital business, and in agriculture through Future Agrovet, as well as the eZone electronics retailer.

Kishore Biyani has had a foray into Bollywood, underwriting the critically panned box-office failure Na Tum Jaano Na Hum and Chura Liya Hai Tumne that were released in 2002 and 2003 respectively.