Arvind Fashions sells ‘Unlimited’ business to V-Mart; management explains deal rationale

Arvind Fashion has announced divestment of the assets of its ‘Unlimited’ business to V-Mart Retail in an all-cash transaction for about Rs 150 crore. The company said it had decided to exit this business and will now focus on growing the high-conviction focus brands.

On this transaction, Shailesh Chaturvedi, CEO of Arvind Fashions said, “It is largely offline shop transaction where 74 of our stores of ‘Unlimited’ business have been transferred to V-Mart an all-cash deal. These are largely stores in south and west of India where V-Mart is not present currently and we realise a full book value in this transaction of close to Rs 150 crore.”

Arvind Fashions wants to revitalise its high conviction brands which include US Polo Assn, Arrow, Flying Machine, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and Sephora, etc.

Meanwhile, Lalit Agarwal, CMD of V-Mart Retail explained the rationale of the deal from his perspective.

“Organically when we develop a store, we invest Rs 1,400-1,500 per square feet in the capex and similar in the inventory and that’s how we are calculating right now. The stores that we are taking over are around 10,000 square feet on an average, so it’s on a similar range,” he said.

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