Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises on Monday signed an agreement with the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart Stores for foraying in the retail business.

The two companies inked a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly explore business opportunities in India, a company statement said.

The MoU will allow the two companies to study and evaluate the retail market in India and identify business opportunities together within the existing guidelines.

Bharti and Wal-Mart had been in talks for sometime. In fact, Bharti was also in discussions with British retailer Tesco and Carrefour of France, but negotiations with them did not fructify.

Though the statement did not give details, sources said while Bharti would manage the front-end of the retail business, Wal-Mart would take care of the supply chain, logistics and other back-end operations.