Lifestyle International to invest Rs 500 crore in fashion brand Max in 3 years

Raghu Rajagopalan, President and COO, Max Retail Division (Lifestyle International Pvt Ltd), said, “In fact 90 per cent of our Max products come with a single label and a majority (85 per cent) is manufactured in India. We produce 30 per cent in the knitwear capital, Tirupur, while other key locations include Surat for rayon or mixed fabric apparel, Jaipur for speciality, hand-woven, ethnic wear. Woollens come from Ludhiana and Kolkata is also an important production centre. We also import through Bangladesh, procuring special fabrics from China, which are routed through export units in Bangladesh.”

The Landmark Group is aiming to breach the Rs 15,000 cr revenue mark by 2020 in India. Lifestyle, the fashion retailing arm, registering a compounded annual growth rate of 18 per cent, is expected to touch Rs 15,000 cr by 2022. The four brands in India are Lifestyle, Max, Home Centre and EasyBuy. Lifestyle International clocked a turnover of Rs 6,700 cr for 2017-18 and this year it is eyeing the Rs 10,000 cr mark.

The COO is confident of achieving this owing to key factors including natural growth, the rising Indian consumption, occasional buying of apparel transforming into choice of spending, sizeable disposable income and the earning power of engineering grads. “US has grown only due to consumption,” he said noting that India, especially down south, spending on lifestyle has been conservative. But, that trend is changing with consumption peaking.

Rajagopalan said, “Consumption is growing across India. You will notice district headquarters will start getting the malls now. For instance, Cuddalore is going for a 2 lakh sq ft mall; likewise, Madurai is talking about a major mall. We have 26 stores in Chennai itself - with seven in malls, and the rest as standalone. Wherever there are consumers, we are present.”

In Chennai, two upcoming malls will boost the growth prospects. “Marina Mall on OMR is set to become operational by Pongal. Our brands – Max, Lifestyle and Spar Hypermarket will be set up there; Binny Mills in Perambur is another upcoming mall space where all three formats will be present. So, Chennai will continue to be a focus area. This year, itself, we have set up five Max stores between April and October. We will be adding four more within next March here. We are expanding to Tiruchy, to house our second store. In Puducherry we are opening one more store to take the count to three owing to the consumption spurt there. We plan to have 50 Max stores by 2020,” he added.

The company plans to invest Rs 150 cr every year for Max brand expansion of which 80 to 90 per cent will be towards its own facilities and the rest will be franchised. “We will invest close to Rs 500 cr over three years,” he said. Lifestyle contributes 45 per cent of the business, while Max generates 35-36 per cent with Easybuy and Home Centre constituting the rest.

South generates 50 per cent of the business followed by north, west and east. “Our entry into east was late, in 2010. We are in south since 2007 at Express Avenue, Anna Nagar and Luz. We have 253 stores today and our aim is to touch 350 stores by next year,” he said, adding the EasyBuy format of Lifestyle aided its penetration in 100 cities.

“The smaller format targets townships like Bhimavaram, Elluru. This format services 250 cities,” Rajagopalan said, adding the mall stores conversion is about 20 per cent compared to 40 per cent sales recorded in standalone stores.