Kirtilal on an expansion spree

Kirtilal Kalidas Jewellers (KKJPL), is planning to open 16 new retail outlets with an outlay of

around Rs 320 crores. Currently, the company has eight stores in the four southern states and one in Ludhiana, Punjab. By September, they plan to open new stores in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh. Recently it launched the Soulmate Collection, a range of diamond jewelry, solitaires and gold jewelry. The collection has over 200 designs and would be on sale till July end. The gold jewelry has both South and North Indian designs, and is completely hand-made. The group offers genuine, beautiful styles and its products have been acknowledged by the World Gold Council and De Beers worldwide. It’s planning to open six to seven stores every year till 2013, with an investment of Rs 20 crores each. The retail expansion would be funded through a mix of debt, internal accruals and promoters’ equity.

Meanwhile, the jewelry retail chain is focusing on consolidating its backward operations by installing ERP and SAP, which is expected to be completed early next year. KKJPL had set up its first store in Coimbatore in 1939 and later expanded to other cities in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab in a phased manner. At present, it has five diamond-cutting and polishing units in Coimbatore. The company, a major player in the Rs 10,000-crores diamond jewelry retail market in the country, reported a 6 per cent decline in sales due to the economic downturn. But things have started picking up again, and it has witnessed a 30 per cent growth since January this year. Kirtilal Kalidas Jewellers is a Coimbatore-headquartered manufacturer and retailer of premium diamond and gold jewelry. It’s an ISO 9001:2000 certified company with branches at Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Bangalore, Ludhiana and Vijayawada.