• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Our Bureau

CHENNAI, Oct. 11

THE Chennai-based bookstore, Odyssey, plans to open 30 stores in 26 months, according to Mr P.K. Iyer, President and CEO, Odyssey.

The company has set up stores in Varanasi and Hyderabad. The ones in the pipeline are for Tiruchi, Coimbatore and Chandigarh. Other small towns in the country will follow this.

Mr Iyer said that the reason why Odyssey chose these towns was because of the absence of large book and gift stores in these places. He said that one of the ways of gaining market share was to nurture new markets, which is what Odyssey is doing.

Besides these new stores, the company is also keen on acquiring well-known retail bookstore brands. Mr Iyer said that some of the old bookstores, which had an established clientele, were in the danger of closing down, because they could not leverage on the economies of scale. Odyssey had plans to run these stores while maintaining the original identities, he said.

Mr Iyer said the company had come out with a retail format that helped it concentrate on merchandise, inventory management and actual running of the store, while a partner would make the investment into real estate.

The company was planning a private placement in three tranches and hoped to mop up Rs16.7 crore in the first tranche.

The company set up a 100 per cent subsidiary in Singapore, Odyssey Leisure Pte Ltd, which will facilitate its listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange. The subsidiary was set in Singapore to help imports for the stores in India.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
Comment on this article to BLFeedback@thehindu.co.in

Stories in this Section
Shaw Wallace boards pint-beer bandwagon

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line