Spencer's to prune investments per store

Spencer's, the retail arm of the Rs 13,500-crore RPG Enterprises, will be focusing more on large format stores this fiscal and prune down investments per store in order to beat recession blues and turn the company profitable.

Spencer's was merged with CESC Limited in 2008-09, the losses of Spencer's which are to the tune of Rs 220 crore till March 2009 are largely cushioned by CESC at present.

Around 140 stores have been shut down in the period of a year and half. At present, around 246 stores are operational.

"Spencer's is definitely losing money, but cannot say that it is not doing well. We are working on different strategies. The company will continue to lose money for the next 12 months or so before it can break even," said Sanjiv Goenka, vice-chairman, RPG Enterprises. In a bid to pare costs, the company plans to adopt cost cutting measures.