Supreme Yarns may enter retail market

Supreme Yarns Ltd., a Ludhiana-based yarn-manufacturing firm, with a turnover of Rs 130 crore, plans to enter the retail market within a year with its own brand of ready-to-wear garments.

The company is setting up a knitting facility in its existing unit at Ludhiana with an installed capacity of 30,000 knitwear garments per day.

The company is likely to raise weaving capacity to add woven garments like shirts and trousers along with t-shirts and tracksuits.

Sanjay Gupta, managing director of Supreme Yarn, told Business Standard, "We are planning to enter the retail market of readymade garments with our own brand of clothing within a year's time. The future of the Indian textiles industry is in value addition and that's what we are trying to tap. Textiles companies which have value addition facilities like manufacturing of fabric, dying, knitting and weaving will always have an upper hand on the companies which limit themselves to only yarn manufacturing."

Elaborating the company's plan to enter retailing their own brand, Gupta said, "Initially we will start with five or six stores in the northern part of the country. After that we will monitor the market and will carry out a survey. We will spread our stores into the rest of India depending on the market situation. But one thing is clear that we will enter the retail market soon."

However, he refused to reveal the investment details of the retail plan saying that it's too early to mention.

When asked of the range of products the company intends to include, Gupta said, "We will have t-shirts, track suits and we are also thinking of adding shirts and trousers."

This means that the company will have to soon add a weaving facility to its existing and upcoming facility of yarn manufacturing, dying and knitting as shirts and trousers are manufactured from woven textiles.

When asked what will be the brand name of their product, Gupta said that the company is in the process of finalising the brand name.

The company is also setting up a manufacturing facility for spinning and knitting. The new spinning unit will add 30,000 spindles and 720 rotors to its existing facility of 33,216 spindles.

Talking of the ongoing expansion of their unit, Gupta said that the expansion will require an investment of Rs 240 crore and the expansion will be completed in three months from now.

"At the moment we are focussed on the expansion, once we are through with it we will go ahead with the retail plans."

The company exports its cotton, acrylic, polyester, cotton acrylic, hand knitting and mink blankets to the markets of the USA, Canada, UK, Hungary, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Hong Kong. The company is in talks with US-based companies like Reebok and Gap for its knitwear and yarns.

"Our yarns are used by Tirupur textiles industry they export the garments to these companies. Hence, indirectly these companies have approved our yarn and dying quality. Now that we will have our own unit of knitwear, we can directly deal with companies like Reebok and GAP," Gupta said.

The company is not willing to let go any chance of business. Gupta said that they are planning to tie up with companies like Birla, Reliance and Walmart, which are entering the Indian market with their retail chain.