The Hindu Business Line : Prateek Lifestyle opens Coupon mall

Bangalore, June 27 Prateek Lifestyle, the retail arm of Prateek (a player in apparel manufacturing and design), has announced its first retail venture – Coupon, a chain of value lifestyle malls. The first ‘Coupon’ mall has been set up in Bangalore.

Spread over four floors, the 50,000-sq. ft mall promises to offer around 140 brands in categories such as apparel, footwear, accessories and home furnishing at discounted prices. Mr Pradeep Agarwal, Managing Director, Prateek, said, “Through this venture we will provide the best of national and international brands across categories at the best of prices with discounts ranging from 30 per cent to 55 per cent. We will also soon launch our private label.” Mr Agarwal said the plan is to open a chain of Coupon malls across the country to tap the organised value retailing segment, which is currently estimated at Rs 6,000-8,000 crore.

The second Coupon mall will come up in Ahmedabad by mid-August. Prateek Lifestyle will roll out 12 malls by March 2008 in 10-12 cities such as Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune. It hopes to have 50 malls by 2010. “By the end of March 2008, with 12 malls, we hope to have revenues of Rs 250-300 crore,” said Mr Agarwal. The total investment in this venture is about Rs 500 crore.

Prateek Lifestyle also has plans to enter other apparel verticals – kidswear and lingerie. After ‘Coupon’, the company’s next retail project will be the launch of kidswear range Kanz from Germany, followed by a tie-up with a European lingerie brand. Prateek Lifestyle aims to have 100 retail outlets by the end of this financial year in all three retail verticals. Prateek’s other divisions are Prateek Apparels, which supplies apparel to the domestic market for clients like Westside, Arvind and Madura Garments and Munch Design Worx.