Gautam Singhania, chairman and MD, Raymond, spelt out his priorities for the group to Viveat Susan Pinto at the sidelines of an event on Wednesday to celebrate 100 years of the company. Excerpts:
Now that you have completed 100 years, what would be your roadmap for the future?
Raymond began in Thane, in 1925, as a small woollen mill and since then it has traversed much ground, including real estate, precision engineering and lifestyle business. The future would be about creating shareholder value for these businesses.
How do you propose to create shareholder value for the three verticals?
The agenda would be to drive 15% topline growth and 20-25% Ebitda growth annually for these businesses. Each business has its inherent strengths and growth drivers that we will tap into.
Most textile players have been hit hard by the 50% US tariffs on Indian exports. What is the impact on your business? Are you looking at alternate markets?
In the short term, there is an impact because of the US tariffs. We are looking at alternate markets such as Europe, for instance. From a domestic perspective, what gives us hope is the GST 2.0 reforms. We see domestic demand getting a boost due to tax cuts in apparels priced up to Rs 2,500. That should give a leg-up to value or mass consumption of garments. While the upper end does suffer because there are no tax cuts in apparel priced above Rs 2,500 (now attracts 18% GST), but the move by the government to cut tax on value apparel to 5% is a welcome step.
What is your sense of the festive season this year?
There is a buoyancy in the market and the GST cuts will certainly help boost consumption.
What is the plan with the real estate business that has been recently listed?
Our Thane land has a development potential worth Rs 25,000 crore. Joint development projects can give us development potential of Rs 14,000 crore. The joint development projects are expected to be 50% of annual pre-sales within two years. We have plans to launch two new projects on our land in Thane and four new joint development projects in Mumbai in FY26. So yes, the plans are significant.