Future Retail, the cash-strapped Kishore Biyani group firm, on Saturday said it will scale down its offline operations amid reports that Reliance Industries has taken over the operations of at least 200 of its stores.

The long-stop date for the Rs 24,173-crore transaction with Reliance Retail has again been extended by six months to September 30.

Long stop, an established practice in merger and acquisition transactions, is a timeframe within which parties agree on the conditions to be fulfilled for a transaction to go through.

In a regulatory filing, Future Retail said financing its working capital needs is difficult and rising losses at stores is an added concern. It has received termination notices for a number of stores because of huge dues and it would no longer have access to them.

“The company is scaling down its operations to reduce losses in the coming months. It plans to expand the online and home delivery business,” it added. Future Retail has more than 1,700 outlets, including the Big Bazaar stores.