Rel Retail signs venture with Office Depot

Just days after entering into a joint venture with Marks & Spencer, Reliance Retail has joined hands with Office Depot, a leading international office products and services provider with annual sales of $15.5 billion, for another joint venture.

Office Depot will hold 51 per cent stake in the venture with Reliance holding the rest.

Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive officer (lifestyle), Reliance Retail, said the company was "working on several such partnership opportunities".

Financial details of the JV were, however, not disclosed.

The JV, which was announced today, has already acquired eOffice Planet, an independent contract stationer in India.

This is the second acquisition for Reliance Retail after in bought Adani Retail in December 2006. Last week, the company had announced a 51:49 JV with Marks & Spencer, a leading international food retailer of food, clothing as well as home products.

It has also tied-up with Citigroup for consumer finance and Pearle Europe of Netherlands for a chain of optical stores.

Sreenivas Nagappa, country manager for Office Depot India, will be based in eOfficePlanet's Mumbai headquarters and Shyam Barilits-Gupta, who currently serves as the CEO of eOfficePlanet, will continue as part of the management team.

With the office products market in India estimated at $2.5-$4 billion in annual sales, Kurien said Office Depot saw huge potential in the Indian office products market which is fragmented at present but recognised as one of the top 15 global markets.