The Rs. 213 crore Morarjee Textiles Ltd., an Ashok Piramal Group-owned company has acquired 67 percent controlling stake in an Italian brand of shirts, Men’s Club, Mr Harshvardhan Piramal, Executive Vice-Chairman, Morarjee Textiles Ltd. said.
He clarified that the company is scouting for another acquisition for its front-end business in Europe, but has not zeroed in on anything as the company would prefer to acquire a brand that offers high value-added products and fits well within our strategy.
Although, the manufacturing has been outsourced to a plant in Southern Italy, the company wants to maintain a relative independence with Men’s Club as they hopes to make a dent in the Japanese and European markets through this acquisition.
Morarjee Textiles targets a turnover of Rs 27 crore for Men’s Club for the year ending March 2008. The group has a design centre at Milan and plans to make a foray in the US market within the next two years.
The company supplies fabric and shirts to various international brands such as Flex, Polo Ralph Lauren, Paul Smith domestic ones such as Zodiac, Allen Solly and Louis Philippe and apparel brands for women such as those of Marks & Spencer and Zara. It will begin supplying trousers next year.
Further, in the second-phase expansion, the company is looking to acquire 10-12 acres of land in either Tumkur district of Karnataka or Visakhapatnam and with an investment of Rs 50-60 crore they plans to increase the capacity to 25 lakh pieces of fabric per annum.
Mr. Piramal added that the plant would also support its garment unit based in Bangalore, Integra Apparels, which offers medium to premium brands and exports both menswear and womenswear to Europe, Australia and the US.
Source : Bharat Textile