City – based Ramaiah group enters retail, BPO segments

Bangalore – based educational and healthcare group, M.s. Ramaiah Group, on Tuesday consolidated its business interests and announced the launch of its retail and business process outsourcing (BPO) initiatives under the corporate brand Valdel Group. And Bangalore is all set to get, in what is claimed by the group as one of its kind in India, a 100,000 sq. ft. super-centre at Kanakapura Road.

Valdel has entered into a strategic tie-up with Malaysia-based Suiwah Corporation to set up the super-centre with an investment outlay of Rs.25 crore. The super-centre is a one-stop shopping destination for the entire family consisting of a department store, supermarket, food court and entertainment centre.

The group, through Valdel, is also entering the BPO segment by setting up a 250-seat centre in the first phase with an investment outlay of Rs.10 crore. The contact centre will provide with multi-media offerings in transactional and strategic BPO space. It will be focussed on telecom, financial services and retail verticals.

Valdel Group comprises Valdel Engineers & Constructors (formerly known as John Brown Technologies), AmSoft, Valdel Retail (formerly SunMart ) and Valdel’s BPO venture.

The M.S.Ramaiah group’s educational and healthcare institutions continue to operate as in the past.

“Our goal in creating Valdel Group was to provide a unique identity for our business interests to grow”, M.R.Jayaram, Chairman of Valdel Group, told reporters here on Tuesday.

“ by being a single group, we can steer growth through international partnerships, joint ventures and by channeling new investments,” M.J.Shantharaam, Managing Director of the group, said.

Valdel Group, which did a revenue of Rs.25 crore for financial 2002-2003, is projecting to touch Rs.170 crore by financial 2004-05.