ABFL on retail expansion spree, plans more Linen Club stores

Despite demonetisation affecting India’s textile and apparel industry players, Aditya Birla Fashion Limited (ABFL) is continuing its expansion plans. As Thomas Varghese, Business Head-Textiles, says as of now, they are planning to open 40-50 Linen Club stores a year and going in for a more enriched pan India presence. ABFL has always been a strong player in South and West India and is planning to retain that position with an eye on North now. Varghese points out, by 2019-2020, they are planning to have more than 300 Linen Club stores. While every store having an investment of Rs 50-60 lakh, one can easily make out the huge amount of money they are going to invest in these forthcoming years. These stores will be spread over 1,200 to 1,500 square feet area and would be a mix of company owned and franchisees.

The group’s textile business contributes close to 1 billion dollars (Rs 6506 crores) in revenue terms, so demonetisation and the burning issue of cheap exports from China are creating a heavy impact on the group’s performance, especially in the last quarter of 2016. Though Varghese is of the opinion that, the market and demand graph is slowly recovering from the negative impact of demonetisation, as far as cheap imports from China is concerned, Indian government has to be firm and take serious measures to protect domestic players.

As for Linen Club, the company opened its first store in Hyderabad in 2002. However, it has taken time to establish the brand as linen is still considered a niche fabric in India. Linen Club already has a store in Muscat, and there are plans to add more stores in the region in the near future.