Arvind Brands to invest Rs 20 cr in 13 Nautica stores

Mumbai: VF Arvind Brands Pvt Ltd, retailers of leading lifestyle brands like Lee and Wrangler in India, will open 13 Nautica stores at an investment of Rs 20 crore over the next one year.

The group recently opened its sixth Nautica store here and could soon open outlets in Jalandhar and Amritsar apart from tier-I centres like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi.

By March next year the company will have up to 19 stores.

"We opened our first store in mid-2005 and for the next two years we had planned an investment of Rs 35 crore of which we have spent Rs 15 crore in six stores," VF Arvind Brands Pvt Ltd CEO Darshan Mehta told PTI.

Of the 13 planned, 10 will be standalone Nautica stores while three are likely to come up in luxury malls in different places of the country, he added.

"With rising purchasing power lifestyle brands represent the aspirational side and there is a growing awareness for them," Mehta said.

The company is a 60:40 joint venture between VF Corporation, which owns over 50 brands around the world, and Arvind Brands.

VF Arvind Brands currently retails six major brands Lee, Wrangler, Rider, Kipling, Jansport and Nautica. It also plans to expand the mass brand Hero.

In the year that ended, the company saw a 40 per cent topline growth with sales of USD 50 million. It has 125 stores in the country retailing various brands.