The Alpha Group has announced that it has reached an agreement with Indian retail operator Pantaloon Retail to acquire the latter's 50% stake in Alpha Future Airport Retail, a 50-50 joint venture established in 2006

to operate duty free outlets at New Delhi international airport.

The 'friendly agreement' with Pantaloon Retail is consistent with the plan launched by Autogrill to integrate the business activities of Alpha Group, World Duty Free Europe and Aldeasa.

In a statement, the company said: ‘The reorganisation of Autogrill Group's presence in India, where it also runs food & beverage operations at Hyderabad and Bangalore airports, implies that the Group can pursue synergies at geographical level too, putting it in an ideal position to take advantage of development opportunities on the Indian marketplace.

‘Delhi International Airport is the second ranking Indian airport after Mumbai by passenger traffic (20 million passengers in 2007). A wide-ranging airport expansion programme is now under way, with the new T3 international terminal, containing 4,000 sq m of retail space, scheduled for completion in 2010, by which time passenger traffic is forecast to rise to more than 60 million annually (source: Delhi International Airport).’

Autogrill says that in the period 2006-2008, HMSHost has strengthened its presence in the area, winning food & beverage contracts at Bangalore, Hyderabad and Singapore airports. To coordinate and manage business development in Asia, in spring 2007 the Autogrill Group opened the Singapore operating base of HMSHost Asia.

With the acquisition of Alpha Group in 2007, the Autogrill Group began operating at the airports of New Delhi and Cochin in India, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Mal? in the Maldives and Kathmandu in Nepal. In the framework of Autogrill Group business reorganisation, responsibility for Alpha Group international retail units (Alpha Retail Asia and Alpha Retail US) has been assigned to Aldeasa (99,9% Autogrill), one of the leading operators in the world airport retail sector.