Arvind Mills gets new name, logo

Indiantelevision.com Team

(12 May 2008 6:30 pm)

MUMBAI: The Arvind Mills Ltd is set to create a new brand identity for itself.

The company has rechristened itself to become Arvind Ltd. It has also unveiled its new logo to reflect its new brand identity.

The transition has been made keeping in mind Arvind's major plans to transform itself from a pure fabric and apparel solutions company to a diversified business group with focus on branded apparel and apparel retail.

"The new business environment presents new opportunities. We have looked at each business individually and adopted a strategy that best suits them respectively. Our efforts over last several years have brought us to a stage where we are ready to maximize the potential within our organization. With solutions in sight for our core business issues and tremendous growth opportunities in the new ventures we will emerge as a stronger, more competitive organization that is well-positioned to respond to and succeed in the ever-changing market place. We wanted to convey to the world this new thinking and direction at Arvind," said Arvind Ltd CMD Sanjay Lalbhai.

The company will focus on enhancing its own brands as well as growing the global brands through partnerships and increasing its presence across customer segments and categories.

Arvind expects a 40 per cent CAGR in the brands business, driven by revenues from new brands such as US Polo, Izod and Hartmarx group of brands.

It also expects a 40 per cent growth in its joint venture business.

Arvind's Apparel retail business is to be focused on two segments of bridge to luxury and value retail.

Also, value retail under the umbrella of MegaMart is targeting an eight-fold increase in revenue to Rs 10 billion in three years.

The company is to realign its product portfolio and marketing approach from the existing traditional model. In the domestic market, the company is going to evolve a direct fabric retailing initiative to target the premium customers in the country.

In the larger industrial segment, the company is focusing on servicing the performance wear, work wear and industrial application fabrics.

To reduce the impact of high level of borrowings on the company's profitability, Arvind is focusing on debt reduction using cash flows of fabric business as well as through unlocking of value in non strategic assets.

"The company holds certain valuable but non strategic assets on one side and at the same time requires cash for its rapidly growing businesses, hence through a combination of cash flows from fabric operations, capital infusion from promoters and sale of non strategic assets we plan to raise about Rs.700 crores over 3 year to be utilized towards debt repayment," said Arvind Ltd CFO Jayesh Shah.