Mahindra retail to close over 25 Mom & Me stores

Mahindra Retail, which runs the Mom & Me chain of kids’ wear stores and also recently acquired online platform Babyoye.com, plans to close around 25 stores by the end of the month while bringing young executives for growth. The company is also moving to cheaper office premises to bring down costs.

Mahindra Retail operates 115 Mom & Me stores across the country and plans to open 35-45 new stores through franchises in the next fiscal year, while bringing the shutters down on almost 25 stores by the end of this month. Out of the 115 stores, 104 of its stores are company-owned. The company aims to generate revenues of Rs 250 crores by the end of March 2016. It reported a loss of Rs114 crores on revenue of Rs 206 crores for the year ended March 2014, according to documents available with the Registrar of Companies.

In August last year, Mahindra brought in Prakash Wakankar from its private equity arm Mahindra Partners to replace K Venkataraman as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. He is taking various initiatives to grow the company’s profits. After launching its retail arm in 2009, Mahindra Retail carried out rapid retail expansion opening over 140 stores but realised that demand was not as strong as the company expected.