Saree retailers find new home in Coimbatore

Pothys and RmKV Silks to enter the cotton city soon.

The best-known sarees houses, finding little or no space for further expansion at Chennai's T Nagar, are making Coimbatore's Oppanakara Street their new business hub.

The Oppanakara Street already houses two famous saree shops "� The Chennai Silks and Sri Ganapathy Silks. And two more, Pothys and RmKV Silks, are keen to enter the cotton city.

While Pothys plans to enter the market through the acquisition route, RmKV would be setting up its own shop here and is on the lookout for land, real estate sources told Business Standard.

Pothys is planning to acquire Shobha Textiles, which was a profit-making unit until it lost its business after the serial bomb blasts in the city in 1998. By the time the promoters were set for a re-launch, Chennai Silks (part of Coimbatore-based Kumaran group and earlier known as Kovai Kumaran Silks) was already garnering huge profits.

In an e-mail response to Business Standard, S Ramesh, managing partner of Pothys, confirmed the company's plan to acquire Shobha Textiles. He said that the deal was still under negotiation and the size was yet to be finalised.

Realty sources put the value of the present Shobha Textiles showroom, spread over 60,000 sq ft, at around Rs 10 crore, considering the skyrocketing land prices in the city.

Earlier in September 2005, Sankarankoil"�based Sri Ganapathy Silks, a textile retailer in Tirunelveli district, opened its showroom here at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore.

A couple of years ago, Kalyan group from Kerala, a major textile group, set up shop in the city.

The textile firms are hoping that with the presence of around 40-50 jewellery shops in the adjacent Raja Street, more and more shoppers who look for a one-stop shopping experience, would flock to the area.

Moreover, as the nearby towns like Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi do not offer enough business potential, Coimbatore has emerged as an obvious choice for the investors.