Biyani eyes $1bn biz from Future Fashion in two years

Kishore Biyani plans to re-build his fashion retail business

into a $1-billion (around Rs 5,000 crores) entity over the next two years. The retail conglomerate has just unveiled a restructuring — de-merging of fashion, foods and FMCG, hypermarkets and supermarkets into three separate entities and hopes to list Future Fashion. The buzz is that Biyani plans to rope in Pantaloon’s CEO Kailash Bhatia to head Future Fashion, since the sale of Pantaloon business is already underway

Under tremendous debt pressure, the Future Group lost a big chunk of its fashion business when Biyani sold Pantaloons to Aditya Birla earlier this year. The group is planning to replicate the Pantaloon format private label strategy through Big Bazaar, Central and Brand Factory stores, which are now being revamped to include higher share of fashion merchandise across the country. Future Fashion consists of fashion retail formats such as Central, Brand Factory, Indus League and other fashion investments held by Future Ventures. Future Fashion will control the fashion businesses of PRIL consisting of Central, Brand Factory, aLL and Planet Sports formats, fashion brands, sourcing and distribution businesses, and the fashion businesses of Future Ventures India (FVIL) consisting of Indus League, Lee Cooper, Celio, Holii, Indus Tree and strategic investments in AND, Biba and Turtle, the group had said earlier. All these businesses would be demerged from PRIL and FVIL to form Future Fashion. The group’s core fashion business is estimated at Rs 2,800 crores post the sale of Pantaloons stores, in which he continues to be a minority investor.

Biyani’s other notable lifestyle brands include Scullers, Indigo Nation, Bare and John Miller. He also operates foreign brands Lee Cooper, Celio, Clarks and Manchester United apparel.

Kailash Bhatia has been a whole time director at PRIL since April 1, 2010. He is the co-founder of ColorPlus brand, with over three decades of experience in the fashion business. Pantaloons was the most profitable format for PRIL and Biyani’s move to get Bhatia to run the groups integrated fashion business is being seen as a move to focus on boosting profitability in the challenging business environment.