Retail News Update

CHANDIGARH: A wholly owned subsidiary of Rs 2,500-crore Nahar Industrial Enterprises, Nahar Retail as part of its major retail and capacity expansion, is all set to invest around Rs 430 crore over the next two years, Nahar Retail’s vice-president, Sachin Sahni.

Nahar Retail, which owns ‘Cotton County’ brand will launch its premium segment ‘French Republic’ and will also have 50 exclusive showrooms in North India at an investment of Rs 40 crore.

Sachin informed that the company will also spend Rs 10-15 crore on brand building. The capacity expansion at garment unit in Ludhiana is also on the list.

Currently, the company has the capacity to manufacture 8000 garments a day. Of the investment, Rs 40 crore would be used to increase production capacity to 20000 garments per day by April 2008.

On the French Republic expansion plans, Mr Sahni clarified that Cotton County is their fashion & lifestyle brand in the medium segment and now they will have a premium segment called French Republic.

Having made its presence felt in Tier II & Tier III cities, Cotton County will now foray into metros and cities in South India. Currently, with 365 exclusive outlets across North India, Cotton County is targeting 500 stores by the end of this fiscal, which translates into launching one new store a day & and cross the 1,000 store mark by the 2009.

Already, the company has launched its stores in Gulbarga, Raichur & Belgaum in Karnataka and is looking at key markets such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mangalore, Coimbatore, Kochi, Madurai, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirapalli, Vijaywada, Visakhapatnam, etc.

As part of its major expansion, the company will also be focusing on its new kids wear under the brand name ‘TAZO’ and women’s wear ‘FEMME’.