Hidesign sews up JV in US

Nelson Mandela, Steven Spielberg and Bob Hawke have been using leather accessories of Hidesign, an Indian brand, for the last few years. Hidesign, which makes leather garments and accessories, could add more names to its list of celebrity customers soon.

Dilip Kapur, president of the Chennai-based Hidesign, said the company has entered into a 50:50 partnership with the US-based Scully to open 10 exclusive Hidesign stores and invest about $2 million (about Rs 8.75 crore) in the new venture.

"These stores will be unique as customers can customise the products of Hidesign to their design and colour specifications which will be made in India and sent across in less than 20 days. The selling proposition of the venture will be that only one of type is manufactured. We plan to open two stores in the US by September this year," he added.

The tieup is expected to synergise the partners' core competencies in different aspects of the leather trade. Hidesign is the manufacturer, while Scully's domain strength is leather retailing.

Hidesign expects to close the current financial year with a turnover of Rs 73 crore, a growth of 34 per cent over last year.

Scully is almost a century old company into retailing of leather wear for men, women and accessories such as bags, wallet, gloves, belts. Hidesign manufactures leather jackets and accessories such as travel bags, backpacks, lap-top bags, wallets and belts.

Scully has been Hidesign's distributor in the US for the last six years. Last year, Scully established a trail with a Hidesign store at Carmel in California.

Kapur said, "With the store turning to be a good success the US-based company has approached us for a equal joint venture agreement four months ago, which was finalised last month."

Kapur said though the company does not operate through a franchisee model in India, seven of the nine overseas stores are franchisee stores.

The company has stores in Moscow, Dubai, US, South Africa and distributors in Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka.

On the domestic front, Hidesign plans to add six to eight stores in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Noida, Chandigarh and Pune to its existing network of 28 stores.