India retail supermarket Spencers

India's LN Mittal-backed Indiabulls group has shelved retail expansion plans, choosing instead to focus on its financial and real estate businesses, reports the Business-Standard.

Store One - the retail arm of the firm - runs three stores in Pune and Nagpur, and had planned to expand into Mumbai and Delhi, as well as branch out into the cash and carry business.

'As of now, our stores in Pune and Nagpur are doing well. But retail is a very competitive business. Hence, we are not expanding our retail stores for now,' Gagan Banga, chief executive officer, Indiabulls Financial Services, told the Business-Standard on Wednesday. 'For now, we are focusing on our core business.'

The group, which entered the retail business in 2007, incurred heavy retail losses during the 2008/09 economic downturn.