More, An Indian grocery chain backed by Amazon.com Inc. is considering an IPO that could value the company as much as $5 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.
Food and grocery retailer More has a national presence and is an Omni-Channel Retailer, catering to all segments of its customers through supermarkets, hypermarts, and e-grocery, powered by Amazon. Aditya Birla Retail is acquired by Wittzig Advisory from AB Group and renamed “More Retail Limited.” The e-Commerce Office was set up in Bangalore and it is the fourth-largest supermarket chain in India, following Future Group, Reliance Retail, and D-Mart.
With its website http://www.shop.moreretail.in, More Retail Limited offers grocery retail services in multiple cities under its own label.
With the acquisition of Trinethra Super Retail in 2007, the Aditya Birla Group entered the retail industry. Trinethra Super Retail had over 172 outlets across four states. Currently, all the stores have adopted the branding “More. stores“.
More offers its customers prepaid points linked to their mobile numbers for some of their purchases. Redeemed points would be rewarded with discounts or exclusive benefits. It used to offer prepaid cards to redeem points, but this service has been discontinued and balances are not redeemable, even if they are available.
More Retail could raise as much as $500 million in a listing, which would largely consist of new shares, one person said.
There were several news reports, later confirmed by an order from the Competition Commission of India, that More had been sold by the Aditya Birla Group to investors led by private equity fund Samara Capital & e-commerce company Amazon. As a result, More no longer belongs to the Aditya Birla Group.
Witzig Advisory Services Pvt. acquired More Retail from billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Aditya Birla Group in 2019, according to the chain’s website. Witzig is owned by Amazon and Samara Capital Partners.
As per sources close to the development, discussions are at an early stage and details such as timing and size could change. A representative for Samara Capital declined to comment, while a representative for More Retail did not immediately respond to inquiries.
