Corporate Update

Gini and Jony Apparel to enter capital market

Gini & Jony Apparel, which owns the “Gini & Jony” kid’s lifestyle brand, is planning to hit the capital market with an initial public offer by the end of the current fiscal to raise Rs 75 crore for funding its expansion plans.

“We have agreed in-principle to the idea and will start working on the red herring prospectus to be submitted to the Securities and Exchange Board of India from the next month,” company managing director, Mr Prakash Lakhani told reporters here recently. The 25-year old readymade garment manufacturing company proposes to increase its production capacity from the current eighteen lakh pieces a year to twenty seven lakh units a year from the next year in its two plants in Daman and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) and to increase the number of its exclusive brand outlets from the existing 19 to 49 by the end of 2006 at an estimated investment of Rs 25 crore.

The company also plans to open a one stop shop for kids in future and envisages increasing its presence in large format stores from existing 65 to 80 by the end of 2006 and from 200 to 290 in multi brand outlets during the same period.

“Since money is a constraint for us to grow at the moment, we will chalk out our further expansion plans as we come out with the IPO,” company chief financial officer, Mr Harish Mehta said. Meanwhile, the company aims to increase its turnover from Rs 68 crore in the last fiscal year to Rs 100 crore in the current fiscal and targets to achieve Rs 500 crore within the next five years.