Diversified telecom player Bharti Enterprises Ltd is not likely to announce its foreign retail partner before the next few weeks are over, sources in the company said today. The news comes days before the expected late-October deadline expires, by when one of the top multinational retail chains was expected to have partnered with Bharti on creating a new high-end retail chain throughout the country.

The new still hazy deadline for Bharti to finalise its retail partner — likely to be either Wal-Mart or Tesco of the US — is now late November. No concrete reason has been given out yet by the company for this failure to finalise a partner for this crucial new venture that is already crowding with competitors in the growing retail marketplace.

But sources close to watching the developments at Bharti said that the current delay could well be because a cloud still hangs over how foreign investment (FDI) in front-end retail will be managed in the country. It has now also been known for some months that the kind of participation that the massive Wal-Mart or Tesco-style company would seek, may not be easy to build and operate in India.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Bharti Chairman and Joint Managing Director Sunil Bharti Mittal said that the FDI guidelines are “very clear’’, in fact, and give an Indian company a clear set of rules by which it can operate a retail chain in partnership with a foreign company. “In our minds there is no uncertainty — the FDI Issue is very clear — there can be no FDI in front-end retail,’’ Mittal said.

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