The Hindu Business Line : Liberty Shoes to enter branded retailing with subsidiary

According to Mr Adarsh Gupta, Executive Director, the name of the branded retail outlet would be Revolutions. The company hopes to open 24 such outlets during the 18-month period starting from March.

The subsidiary, Liberty Retail Revolution Ltd, was floated only in January. Apart from shoes, it will sell items such as watches and sunglasses. While Liberty Shoes hold 51 per cent stake in the company, the rest is held by its promoters.

"We are hoping to invest Rs 20-25 crore in the retailing business. All the shops will be taken on a nine-year lease. We are not investing any money in real estate. We are hoping to generate a turnover of Rs 70 crore from the retail business in the next two years," Mr Gupta told newspersons.

In the current financial year, Liberty Shoes will be able to maintain its previous fiscal's turnover of Rs 225 crore and its profitability will continue to hover at Rs 12 crore-14 crore.

On whether the promoters would continue with their 49 per cent stake or hive it off to someone, Mr Gupta said Liberty Retail Revolution might enter into a strategic tie-up with a foreign player.

"We are eyeing foreign players who have a well-established global brand. In the strategic agreement, we would like to produce their goods in our factories and in return we would like to sell their items in India. It would be an exclusive agreement", he said.

At present, Liberty Shoes has three plants in Haryana and its total capacity is 50,000 pairs a day. It is setting up a fourth plant at Dehradun which would be able to make 5,000 pairs a day. The plant will be ready by December and its cost would be Rs 8 crore.

Regarding the Revolution outlets, he said that the first be set up in Mumbai and will be followed by one each in Chennai and Hyderabad. Once it is over, Mumbai will have its second outlet and Kolkata will have one. "We have even set up overseas outlets too", he added.