Himatsingka set for mass retailing

Himatsingka Seide, the Bangalore-based Rs 1,000-crore bed linen and woven silk exporter, is planning to aggressively enhance its retail presence in the country.

Currently, the company has a retail presence in the premium segment through its ‘Atmosphere’ brand of stores, which dots some of the high streets in India, West Asia and South East Asia.

Sources close to Himatsingka said that while ‘Atmosphere’ is in the couture range, the company is finalising a blueprint, which will take it into prêt line. “This expansion may take 6-8 months to fructify and it will be through an exclusive range of stores or through shop-in-shop in retail chains such as Shoppers Stop,” a source detailed.

The retail move comes close on the heels of Himatsingka’s bed-linen plant with an installed capacity of 20 million metres going onstream at Hassan in Karnataka.

While majority of this capacity will be consumed by three companies which Himatsingka acquired in Europe and the US, the spillover from this is expected to fuel the retail strategy in India. Himatsingka did not comment on this development.

Parallely, Himatsingka is also looking to expand its ‘Atmosphere’ brand “as there has been good acceptance of this concept,” which has enabled this business to be operationally profitable. “Broadly, Himatsingka is working out a game-plan to be a vertically integrated home textile player with a global presence. The bed-linen plant, commissioned a year ago, is a milestone in the company’s capability to diversify its products portfolio and make inroads into new markets in the home textiles segment,” an analyst noted.

The three acquisitions – Giuseppe Bellora in Italy, Divatex Home Fashions and DWI Holdings in the US — bring global distribution capabilities. While Divatex is the third largest distributor of bed linen in the US, DWI holds the licence to manufacture and distribute Calvin Klein bedding products in the US, Canada, Mexico and India. In addition, it also has the licence to manufacture and distribute Barbara Barry bedding products globally.

Analysts tracking this company indicate that the company is expected to stabilise in the current financial year. The company had posted a net loss of Rs 24 crore in last fiscal as the bed-linen plant was one of the major expenses for the company. “However, there are clear indications that there might be a slowdown by at least 15 per cent for its sales due to the global economic crisis,” the source noted.