Home & Apparel Chain to be part of Arvind Retail

Alok Industries promoted Home & Apparel chain of retail stores will be part of Arvind Retail after Alok Industries hives of Arvind Retail as a 100% subsidiary. The sub-division process is expected to be completed by Dec-08.

Mr. Umesh Garg, VP of retail operations told Dow Jones,

We are looking at investing Rs 5,00 cr to open 500 stores across India by March 2010. We will continue to invest and expand our business.

They have experimented with different store formats between 800 sft – 3,000 sft and have decided that all future stores will be of the size of 1,00 sft-1,200 sft. Home & Apparel retails home textile products, apparels and accessories.

At a time when all the retailers are trying to scale back and have a re look at their operations, Alok seems to be in an ambitious expansion mode. The retail venture hopes to break even by FY2011.