Fogg maker Vini Cosmetics eyes Rs 1,200 crore turnover in 5 years

Led by ex-Paras Pharma promoter, company expects inorganic growth as well as JVs to fuel growth

Seasoned marketer Darshan Patel, who has pulled off a 'winner' in his Fogg deodorant, is eyeing to take the turnover of his company Vini Cosmetics Private Ltd to Rs 1200 crore in five years time, up four times from the current revenues of Rs 300 crore.

Two new product launches by March as well as plans of inorganic growth are likely to fuel the growth ahead.

This financial year 2014-15, Patel says the company is looking at 25-30 per cent growth, which means the turnover should be around Rs 400 crore. Private Equity investor Sequoia Capital has picked up a 9 per cent stake in Vini last year for Rs 110 crore, and Patel plans to use the funds for making strategic acquisitions.

Without divulging any further, Patel says that he is in the lookout for suitable players in the personal care category that will bring in new portfolios under Vini and expand its product range. This apart, plans are also on for tying up with local or international nutraceuticals player to foray into the segment. "I might float a separate company for the nutraceuticals range, but it will be under the Vini umbrella brand," Patel says.

Patel, had started Vini in 2010 with Rs 50-75 crore investment after he had split from erstwhile Paras Pharmaceuticals in 2006. He was just 44 years of age then and had made $43 million by selling his stake in Paras to private equity fund Actis. "The personal care business is the only business I know about, and after four years of research and brainstorming I decided to come up with Vini Cosmetics," Patel said. He chose the deodorants space as it was clocking a 25-30 per cent growth rate, and Patel already had the experience of launching the SetWet range of deos while in Paras.

His strategy of offering a deodorant in dosage form worked well with the consumers and the Fogg range has already garnered around 17 per cent share in the deo segment in India and is the numero uno brand in the market at the moment. "There were several products available in the market, I decided to come up with a differentiator, or a 'no gas' proposition for Fogg. This caught the consumers' fancy as this meant substantial savings, the deo bottle would last longer," Patel explains adding that this needed innovations both at the product level (a gas-free formulation) and packaging level (special pump to deliver the deo as dosage forms).

Currently, Fogg accounts for nearly 65-70 per cent of Vini's turnover and is the flagship brand. Patel, however, has no plans of having any brand extensions of Fogg ( he has already ventured into a women's range under the brand). He plans to come up with more category creators in the times to come.

"By March, we plan to launch two more products in the beauty care segment, completely new categories" he says without disclosing much about the potential launch.

He claims that he has also created a category with his Delicca face wash which comes as a powder and is claimed to be the first sulphate-free face wash in the country.

Patel plans to build on the Delicca brand slowly, and says that television commercials on the brand would start picking up in some time.

"We do not indulge in digital media campaigning. We have a small budget and have decided to focus on television commercials," he said. Last year Vini had an advertising budget of Rs 70 crore.