India’s largest listed retailer, Pantaloon Retail, has nearly doubled its full-year profit for the fourth quarter as the ongoing economic recovery helped lift sales.

Net profit surged 170% to INR989m in the quarter to 30 June 2010. And core retail turnover climbed 50% to INR249.37m.

The retailer is in the midst of a reorganisation that has seen it move out of peripheral retail businesses such as footwear and lingerie to focus instead on four core categories – food, fashion, general merchandise and home.

For the full year, profit jumped 27.7% to INR1795.6m (US$38.5m), compared with INR1405.8m a year earlier. But net sales slipped to INR59.3bn, a drop of 6.5% from last year’s INR63.4bn.