VLCC plans Rs 300 cr investment for expansion

Company to open 200 slimming centres across India

"We have plans to inject Rs 300 crore in next three years for broadening our product portfolio and opening new slimming centres in the country as well as abroad," VLCC Personal Care Limited CEO Sandeep Ahuja told reporters.

Reacting to the increasing market demand, the company has planned its second plant to make personal care products at Sidcul, in Haridwar district of Uttaranchal with an initial investment of Rs 20 crore. "This factory will manufacture skincare products and it will have a manufacturing capacity of 8,000,000 units," he said.

The plant will go operational during the next year, he added. The company currently has a factory in Haryana.

VLCC will look at two options ""private equity placement as also initial public offer "" for funding the whole project. "We will consider private equity participations and IPO for funding our expansion programme," said Ahuja, who was here to launch the group's first beauty outlet in Punjab.

Post investment, the VLCC group expects a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore as against total turnover of Rs 175 crore in last fiscal.

Yogesh Sethi, VLCC's chief operating officer, said the company would enter the retail space by opening outlets across the country's major cities in the next two years. "These outlets will sell all the products in our own range as well as products from global manufacturers with whom the company plans to enter into marketing tie-ups," Sethi explained. He however did not disclose the details.

Sethi said the company would open beauty treatment centres in at least 12 new areas in the next three years. In addition to adding centres in India the company will also open centres in the Saarc region, particularly in Bangladesh(10), Pakistan (10-12) and Sri Lanka(5), Sethi said. VLCC had recently started a centre in Dubai and would open more centres in the Gulf countries, he elaborated.

VLCC is thinking in terms of adding to the base of its Beauty Health and Management(BHM) Institute campuses. From five campuses now, we will go to 11 during the current year, Sethi said. The new campuses would be in Bangalore(second in the city), Pune(second), Delhi (third), Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai, he informed.

Earlier, while launching the new anti-aging treatment and products, Vandana Luthra said the increasing awareness about anti-aging treatment in India had seen the market growing at a 30-40 per cent each year over last couple of years.

She said the anti-ageing therapy would comprise eight international treatments with serums and creams formulated and packaged in France. These include Lipo-Lift Contour, Aroma Sensitive, Sebo Coluour, Botu-Like, Skin Hormone Resource, Supreme DHE-Age, WhitePerfexct and Novacid Plus. Noted actor Shabana Azmi endorsed the offering.