The city-based textile manufacturer- Amartex Industries Ltd- is planning to strengthen its retail base by opening 151 outlets across the country. The company plans to establish this retail chain by the end of the year 2008. The managing director of Amartex, Arun Grover, told FE, “We have set aside a budget outlay of Rs 180 crore for expansion. We’ll raise the money through an IPO and internal cash accruals. We have already short-listed the merchant bankers as SBI Caps and Karvy for the IPO. At present we have about 20 large and 43 small format stores. The retail outlets are named Shoppers World and Shoppers Gallery based on the retail format. We will have both the company-owned stores as well as franchise model stores.”
The Shoppers Gallery will be spread across an area of 1,000-1,200 sq ft. Amartex’s own textile range- Groviano will be available in these stores. Whereas, Shoppers World will be spread over an area of about 20,000 sq ft. The company has also firmed up its plans to enhance the capacity of two of its manufacturing units at Ludhiana and Dharuhera. Grover added, “We will double the capacity of the knitted garments unit at Ludhiana and woven garments unit at Dharuhera. The capacity will be scaled up from the present one lakh garments to two lakh garments by the end of this fiscal.”
