DIPP to relax norms for wholesale cash-and-carry firms

20 Sep 2011 Evaluate

In a move, which will benefit the retail companies with foreign joint ventures, the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) has decided to relax a key condition imposed on wholesale cash-and-carry companies. Foremost retail companies such as Bharti WalMart and Tata-Tesco, which have a cash-and-carry backend in their joint venture with an Indian partner and also want to sell their products to the front-end retail chain run by their Indian partner only (as multi-brand retailing is not allowed), will benefit from this move.

Under the former guidelines, cash-and-carry companies could sell only up to 25 percent of their turnover to group companies. DIPP intends to change the definition of ‘group’ in line with Accounting Standard 23 (AS-23), which does not prescribe any equity limit for defining a ‘group company’, in a policy circular, which is expected to be issued by the end of this month. Under the AS-23 definition, a group means a parent company and its various subsidiaries.

The control can be worked out either through more than 50 percent of the voting rights or control of the composition of the board or the control of the governing body, so as to obtain economic benefits from the activities. DIPP has termed restrictive guidelines under the Companies Act and Foreign Trade Policy, which specifies a company with more than 26 percent investment in another company, will be considered a group company.

Retail experts said, in the new definition, the restriction of 25 percent will not be applicable. For example, Bharti Enterprises, which has a 50-50 joint venture with Walmart, controls 100 percent in Bharti Retail. On the other hand, as per the existing definition, Bharti Retail and Bharti Walmart are clearly group companies of Bharti Enterprises. Therefore, the wholesale venture would be able to sell only 25 percent of its turnover to Bharti Retail, the front-end retail chain. Under the new definition of ‘group’, they would no longer remain as group companies anymore.

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