In a cumulative sense, the deal ensures some of the popular retail brands created by Biyani like Big Bazaar, FBB, Easyday, and Central stay alive

The timing couldn’t have been more opportune for Reliance with Mukesh Ambani recently garnering support from global giants like Google and Facebook for his own larger technology play, JioMart, which has been positioned at the fulcrum of Reliance’s retail drive.

As analysts point out, the deal has bolstered Reliance Retail’s positioning significantly in several ways. It has got control of a positive cash flow business (estimated close to Rs30,000 crore). More importantly, the deal takes Reliance Retail miles ahead of any competition when it comes to grocery strength – the largest vertical of the modern and organised vertical in the country estimated at $800 billion annual retail sales.

The two companies have been the leading entities in the space and now their combined might takes the Reliance grocery business to the point where all other entities will be overshadowed. Going by the market buzz following the takeover announcement of Future Group, DMart will be the only competition worth mentioning for Reliance Retail.

It remains a mystery to many why someone like Biyani who clearly emerged as a pioneer in the Indian retail business simply failed to look beyond the capital intensive, brick and mortar model of retail business. Something which is now strongly believed to have pushed him on to the debt path, finally forcing him to exit the game.

And there is another dimension which seems to be equally baffling. While Reliance has chosen to make the most of the worst possible spell in scaling up its retail business, why have other conglomerates like Tata, Aditya Birla or RPG Group (with specific retail businesses) shied away from taking a shot at buying a stressed Future and enhance their footprint? Are they resigned to the fact that strength picked up by Reliance Retail in recent years is invincible and can’t be challenged? This again is a major open-ended question as of now.