Salon chain Naturals Beauty has entered into an agreement with Bharti Retail Pvt Ltd, which has joined hands with global retail giant Wal-Mart for its retail foray for setting up salons inside Easyday Market stores which are compact hypermarket stores operated by Bharti Retail.
The Chennai-based salon chain also said that it is looking to raise around Rs 100 crore from a private equity to support its expansion plans.
Bharti Retail spokesperson confirmed the development and said, “In order to serve our customers better, Bharti Retail sub-leases space in Easyday Market stores and towards this we have sub-leased space to Naturals in some of our stores.”
It may be noted, Big Bazaar, the hyper market format store of Kishore Biyani-led Future Group, also house Star & Sitara — a shop-in-shop for wellness, beauty and salon.
C K Kumaravel, co-founder and managing director of unisex beauty salon chain, Naturals added, “It is an important decision for us and it will help us to increase our presence beyond southern market.” Presently, the saloon chain has 130 salons, of which 124 are in South and six are in non-southern markets including Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Bhopal, Bhubneswar and Kolkata. “We are starting with three stores of easyday Market stores — Vaishali in Delhi, Nasik and one at Aurangabad — based on these success we will expand, our ultimate aim is to be in their (easyday’s) 250 stores across the country.” The first store with 14 seats, spread over in 1,300 sq,ft at Vaishali is expected to go on stream mid-April 2012.
All the stores will be owned by Naturals, he said. It may be noted, of the 130 stores presently 124 are franchise run stores. Kumaravel added that these Saloons will not offer any long services, maximum service will be for two hours.
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Commenting on company’s fund raising plan, he said, “We are looking at raising around Rs 100 crore from private equity and we are in advance discussion.”
The money will support company’s plan to expand its number of saloons to 1,000 in the next three years and to touch Rs 1,000 crore as a Brand.