Reliance Industries acquires ITC’s brand John Players

Reliance Industries has acquired ITC’s brand John Players. This includes the brand and distribution rights through 750 stores, including 65 exclusive franchise outlets. The acquisition will help Reliance Industries bolster its own-brand apparel business, which will be an important element of its upcoming e-commerce business. It will strengthen Reliance Retail’s readymade garments and accessories portfolio in the fashion and lifestyle retail space, and further consolidate its leadership position as India’s largest, most profitable and fastest growing retailer.

The sale of the brand is part of a recast by ITC of its apparel business to focus on the premium end. The lifestyle retail business of ITC faced competition in the past two or three years from value fashion retailers such as Reliance Trends, Future Group’s FBB and Lifestyle’s Max besides heavy discounts on apparel sold by e-commerce firms like Flipkart, Myntra and Amazon. Since lifestyle retail was accounted for in the non-cigarette, fast-moving consumer goods business of ITC, its losses were pulling down overall segment profitability. ITC entered the lifestyle apparel business in 2000 through the Wills Lifestyle stores and launched John Players targeted at youth in 2002. However, the firm could not build the brand and it emerged in the recent restructuring exercise that it had no synergy with the premium lifestyle retail business.