Arvind Lifestyle Brands Limited (ALBL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arvind Fashions Limited (AFL) in India, has seen its brands recover from pre-epidemic levels.
Indian denim makers and fashion brand management companies have also just raised 59 million dollars from existing investors.
Meanwhile, Asian fashion group announced on 23 August, it had raised Rs 439 crore (a little over 59 million) from existing investors.
The new funds will “significantly strengthen” the balance sheet and allow businesses to follow its growth strategies that will simultaneously protect against near-term epidemic-related uncertainties, the AFL said in a statement.
It’s worth recalling that earlier this summer, the Indian retailer signed a definitive agreement to sell its value-fashion retail chain Unlimited to retailer V-Mart retail Ltd, for about 20.2 million euros in an all-cash transaction.
Commenting on the deal, the CEO of Arvind Fashions, Shailesh Chaturvedi, said, “we got a “fair deal” for Unlimited and plan to focus on growing “high conviction brands” such as US Polo Assn, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Arrow, Flying Machine and Sephora.”
On the other hand, Arvind Fashions focus on the six brands that have already recovered from the pandemic’s impact.
They said, “We believe, for our strategy of profitable growth, those six brands are the focus areas. In that context, other things become less important.”
Indeed, these brands would have recovered sales levels not seen since the pandemic started.
According to Chaturvedi, they thought through very hard, and they figured their core competency is a very enviable portfolio of six brands. Most of our brands have a relaxed, casual feel so they’re perfect for post-covid, work-from-home, relaxed wear scenarios.
In July and August their brands are recovering very strongly because their portfolio is ideal for work from home, he added.
In a recent interview, the company’s CEO acknowledged that “Covid wave two was very strong and very bad, and that the lockdowns and store closures impacted the business negatively.”
But one thing that helped was that we had a playbook. We had done things last year, so we had some sort of muscle memory built on how to manage costs and cash flows. We had a Rights Issue money coming in May that also helped,” highlighted Chaturvedi.
The company’s executive said, “The company delivered 50 percent net sales value in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period a year and two years ago.”
Also compared to last year, their business became four times in the first quarter. A large amount of that growth came from their power brands, and also from digital.
