Reliance Brands, which is branch of the Mukesh Ambani backed Reliance Industries, is currently in talks to acquire major stakes in the fashion apparel brand- Ritu Kumar. Some of the reports say that the company wishes to acquire 30% of the Ritu Kumar stakes. It is also reported that it is in talks to buy stakes which are currently held by Everstone Capital, along with that, a major share too, which is held by the promoter in the fashion brand itself.
Reliance is supposedly going to take over the controlling in the stakes in the brand while the promoters will be retaining a small amount of the stakes, said three people familiar to the matter, to the news agency- The Economic Times.
Reliance has been acquiring a lot of brands and companies recently to compete with its competitors in the market like Amazon Inc and Flipkart, which is owned by the American company- Walmart.
The Ritu Kumar Fashion House owns four brands which include RI, Label and Ritu Kumar Hime, along with Ritu Kumar. The company is almost fifty years old and was seen trying to raise funds for some time now.
It is a New Delhi based fashion and clothing brand.
The official announcement of the deal is expected to be done in next week.
This deal is said to give Everstone Capital, an exit from the designer clothing brand. Everstone operated over 84 stores and outlets of the brand across the country and had invested more than ₹ 100 crore in the Ritu Kumar Fashion Brand almost 7 years back in 2014.
Reliance Brands ranges products from premium to luxury quality. It markets several premium brands in the country. Some of them include- Burberry, Bally, Gas, Kate Spade, Diesel, Brooks Brothers and Steve Madden.
After acquiring of the smaller rival of the company- Genesis Luxury, the company gained dominance over many more of the high-end brands which also include Salvatore Ferragamo, Jimmy Choo, Giorgio Armani, Michael Kors and Paul Smith.