India’s largest retailers are taking the pace of opening offline stores to the highest level in four years. Many companies are raising funds from debt and equity markets for this expansion. Amazon and Samara Capital-backed ‘More Retail’, Tata Group’s ‘Trent’ and DMart-run ‘Avenue Supermarts’ have together raised or plan to raise more than Rs 4,000 crore for expansion in this financial year. Due to this, investment in growth has increased rapidly year after year.
Reliance Retail increased its non-current bank loan from Rs 14,809 crore to Rs 22,521 crore in 2025-26. The company last week said it will continue to invest in its omni-channel infrastructure, especially ‘dark stores’, over the next 9-10 months and will also expand its physical store network in smaller cities. The company runs more than 700 dark stores. Dinesh Taluja, Chief Financial Officer of Reliance Retail, said that we are focusing on expanding the network and increasing our penetration in the markets, so investment will continue.
How many stores did the companies open?
According to an ET report, the country’s 10 largest listed retailers — including Reliance Retail, DMart, Trent, Titan Company, Jubilant Foodworks and V-Mart Retail — have reduced the number of closed stores and added a total of 2,182 new stores in 2025-26. This is 25 percent more than the 1,745 stores of the last financial year. Most retailers accelerated expansion in 2025-26 after closing several loss-making outlets in the last two financial years. They had added 1,865 stores in 2023-24. According to industry officials, this year’s expansion is expected to be the fastest in 2021-22 and 2022-23 after the increase in pent-up demand after Covid-19.
Raised Rs 500 crore from foreign company
According to information received from business intelligence platform ‘Toffler’, ‘More Retail’ has recently said in the report filed with the Registrar of Companies that it is investing heavily in its omni-channel business. This business requires a lot of capital to support growth and fund negative cash flows. According to the filing, the company raised more than Rs 500 crore in two tranches through a private placement of non-convertible debentures with ‘The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’. Earlier this month, Avenue Supermarts had approved the issuance of non-convertible debentures of up to Rs 1,000 crore in one or more tranches through private placement.
Trent will raise Rs 2500 crore
At the same time, Trent had taken approval from shareholders in the last quarter to raise up to Rs 2,500 crore, so that “select investments” could be accelerated. These investments include store expansion, upgrading of existing outlets, rapid rollout of star stores and selective investments in retail real estate. Arvind Fashions told investors that it plans to add 1,50,000 sq ft of net retail space in 2026-27, compared to 1,40,000 sq ft of space added in the last financial year.
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