Retail giant Vishal Retail has capitalised on the real estate slump and successfully renegotiated store rentals for five lakh sq ft in the past three months, resulting in savings of Rs 30-lakh per month.

“On an average, we have been able to renegotiate rents by 20-25 per cent. In some cases, we have obtained up to a 40 per cent downward revision,” Vishal Retail Group’s President, Mr Ambeek Khemka said here.

Besides renegotiating rentals, the Delhi-based retailer plans to cut costs and optimise efficiencies, either by closing down, relocating or re-sizing some stores, Mr Khemka said.

Besides Delhi, re-sizing of stores into smaller, viable ones has been done primarily in Tier II and III cities such as Ranchi, Jalpaiguri, Raipur, Dhanbad, Surat, Jorhat, Aurangabad, Bareilly, Guntur, Meerut and Kolhapur, he said

“We have relocated a store in Karnal, Haryana and are doing the same for a Kolkata store,” he said. Vishal Retail has a presence in 106 cities pan-India and spread over three million sq ft, including hypermarkets and small-format stores.

It has 170 company-owned stores and 15 stores under the Franchisee-owned Franchisee-operated (FOFO) model, he said

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