Bharti Family Office's JV with PizzaExpress

The newly-formed Bharti Family Office, which channels personal investments of Airtel promoters, has kicked off its first business initiative with a joint venture with the UK's PizzaExpress that will be led by Rakesh Mittal's elder son Ramit. The business led by Ramit is the first of a series of ventures that the Bharti Family Office plans to invest in. Bharti Family Office promoted-Gourmet Investments and PizzaExpress, run by the UK's Gondola group, hope to launch restaurants under the PizzaExpress chain early next year. For PizzaExpress, this is a second coming in India. Its maiden venture in India, inked about seven years ago with the VK Modi group, failed to take off on account of inefficient operations and lost ground to aggressive competitors like Yum Foods-owned Pizza Hut and Domino's.