Reliance Retail's FMCG plans stay in fast lane with funds on tap

Reliance Retail Ventures injected ₹792 crore into its fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) business, Reliance Consumer Products (RCPL), in 2023-24 through debentures, regulatory filings show.

Reliance Retail Ventures is the subsidiary of Reliance Industries and also the holding company for the conglomerate's retail business.

This funding was completed last fiscal in 11 phases, RCPL's filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) show. The information on RCPL's filings were sourced from business intelligence platform AltInfo.


With this, RCPL has raised a total of ₹1,053 crore as debt capital from the parent company over 14 months, according to the filings. RCPL began operations in November 2022 and completed its first full year in FY24.

In the filings, RCPL said the proceeds will be used for business operations. A senior industry executive, aware of the plans, said the funding from the parent into RCPL will continue in this fiscal as well, since Reliance has plans to rapidly grow the FMCG business, expanding distribution into kiranas, setting up bottling plants for beverages and food products, and continue to seek low-ticket value acquisitions.

An email sent to Reliance Industries remained unanswered till press time.

The executive said RCPL is facing capacity constraints to scale up the acquired soft drink brand Campa. "Reliance wants to set up production hubs in each geography for faster expansion which requires capital," he said.

Reliance Retail chief financial officer Dinesh Taluja had told analysts during an earnings call in April that the group will build "localised supply chain in different parts of the country" for its brands like Campa in beverages and Independence in staples to scale them up. "The business continues to scale up nicely. We had a 3x year-on-year growth in general trade channel, in addition to selling through the network of our stores and our B2B network," he said.

Mohit Yadav, founder at AltInfo, said RCPL has acquired stake in well-known brands like Alan's Bugles, Sosyo, Campa and Maliban Biscuits. "Their borrowing limit has recently been increased from Rs 300 crore and may soon be revised. This rapid expansion signals RCPL's ambitious play to establish dominance in the consumer goods sector quickly," he said.

As per RoC documents, the funding by Reliance into RCPL is through unsecured zero coupon optionally fully convertible debentures on rights basis. The company in FY23 had raised '261 crore through the same debentures route.

Reliance had acquired the then defunct Campa brand in 2022 for about '22 crore. RCPL bottles Campa Cola through contract manufacturers and in a facility which produces Sosyo carbonated soft drink in Gujarat, in which it has a 50% stake. The company works with contract bottlers in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and in Maharashtra, where it has an agreement with Ghodawat Consumer Products.

RCPL has also completed the acquisition of IP rights and trade including trademarks and a recipe for confectionery brand Ravalgaon. It has partnered with Elephant House of Sri Lanka to manufacture and sell their beverages under the Elephant House brand in India.