 "Arvind Limited, Arvind fashions limited, branded apparel, retail, engineering, textiles, retail business, anup engineering")
Even as it raises funds to deleverage and exit brands and businesses to focus on only six marquee brands, Arvind Fashions (AFL) is back to doing what it does best — branded apparel.
Be it a division of its parent firm Arvind or a separate de-merged entity, there was a time when Arvind Fashions was dabbling into several things. For instance, it had more than a dozen brands, including private labels, across multiple categories. It had even divided brands and retail businesses into segments like power brands, emerging brands and specialty retail. While power brands included US Polo Association, Arrow, Flying Machine, and Tommy Hilfiger, emerging ones included Calvin Klein, Aeropostale and Ed Hardy.
Along with specialty retail like Unlimited (erstwhile Megamart), GAP and Sephora, it was operating over 1,400 stores in FY19. Unlimited also sold its private brands like Newport, Ruf & Tuf, Excalibur and Ruggers. Earlier, it also had brands like GANT, Nautica, Hanes, and Izod, among others. However, branded apparel and retail experts like Wazir Advisors’ founder and managing director Harminder Sahni pointed out that it resulted in AFL trying to do too many things at the same time.
“Running apparel brands, retail and e-commerce are different from each other. The company was not only into multiple brands but also engaged in value-retail business like Unlimited as well as it tried to build its omni-channel platform Nnnow.com into an e-commerce player like Myntra. By exiting multiple strategies and businesses to focus only on six brands is the safest bet it has taken,” Sahni said.
The six high-conviction brands on which it now wants to build profitability don’t just include apparels like US Polo Association, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Arrow and Flying Machine but also beauty brands like Sephora. But by its own admission, AFL believes these six brands have enough firepower to yield not just profitability but untapped growth, going ahead.
According to Shailesh Chaturvedi, CEO, Arvind Fashions, each of the six brands carry their own consumer equity and have the potential to tap smaller towns from where the company’s next phase of growth is expected. “Our data shows traction in smaller towns, which is why we are making efforts and accelerating store opening from 100 to 200 annually in these towns,” Chaturvedi said.
