The Hindu Business Line : Emami Landmark Store re-christened Starmark

The city-based personal and healthcare products major Emami Group, which has been operating the Emami Landmark Store Pvt Ltd (as a 50:50 joint venture with the Chennai-based Landmark chain of book stores since 1999), has recently assumed total ownership and control of the store, following the delinking of its operations from Landmark.

Following the takeover of the Chennai Landmark stores business by the Tatas last year, the Emami Group bought out the Calcutta store from the Chennai Group. This has warranted the change in the name of the city Landmark store to Starmark, taking effect from January 4.

Retail entry

Talking to Business Line here today, Mr Mohan Goenka, Director, Emami Ltd, said this signalled Emami's 100 per cent entry into retail, particularly the books, stationery, toys, music items and gifts segments, through its Starmark stores. The new logo was unveiled by Bengali actor Rituparna Sengupta here today.

Mr Goenka said besides the existing Landmark store in central Kolkata, the company was opening another store at the City Centre Mall in Salt Lake by end of this month, to be followed by one more (20,000 sq ft area) at South City Mega Mall in May. The store will continue to serve Kolkata's book-lovers and music aficionados, with the wide range and quality of its stocks, he added.

Mr Goenka said the plan is to open 10 stores in the next 18 months, with each entailing an approximate investment of around Rs 6 crore-7 crore. "Once we establish our planned number of stores in eastern India, particularly in State capitals such as Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Ranchi, we intend to create more stores at the national level." The stores will remain under Emami Retail Pvt Ltd, he clarified.

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