US luxury handbag maker Judith Leiber to expand India operations

NEW DELHI: US luxury handbag maker Judith Leiber will expand its India operations to Mumbai by 2015, says Sangeeta Assomull, CEO of Marigold Group, which brought the brand to India. After opening its flagship store in DLF Emporio Mall, Delhi six years ago, the purveyor says the company is seeing a steady growth of 17% this year. The group has decided to invest approximately half a million dollars for their second store in Mumbai. "We are hopeful that Palladium mall there would accommodate us by 2014-2015. I wouldn't like to look into private equity, but may find a local partner in Mumbai when we go there," she says.

Today, however, she's confident about the future. " GDP projections mean absolutely nothing to me. We are projecting 22% growth for the coming year," she says. Assomull is aggressively going after a new client base in smaller cities and they will continue to have trunk shows in Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Indore. But they wouldn't like to explore the Kolkata market any time soon.

Recently, India even slipped in the 'Ease of Doing Business' list of World Bank from 131st position in 2013 to 134th in 2014. But that's not stopping the parent company. Judith Leiber's global creative director Jana Matheson told ET that India still is in the top five countries they want to do business with. "The culture in India is perfect. For our evening bags are all about dressing up and partying. A lot of the countries like China aren't like that," said Matheson.