Walmart-owned Flipkart will decidedly pick a minority stake in the Arvind Youth Brands, the company’s recently formed subsidiary that owns Flying Machine.
Flipkart has invested INR 260 crore in the textile giant Arvind Fashions to buy a minority stake in the company’s recent subsidiary Arvind Youth Brands.
It owns Flying Machine, which has been retailing on the platforms of Flipkart Group, such as Flipkart and Myntra for over six years.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the Chief Executive Officer, Flipkart Group commented that Flying Machine is a household brand across India. “Through this investment, we look forward to partnering with the team at Arvind Youth Brands to continue to grow the market for its portfolio of products and enhance the strong brand equity that has been built over the last few decades.\”
Expectantly, after the announcement, shares of Arvind Group reportedly shot up to trade at INR 178.10 on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), i.e. up by almost 5 per cent from the previous day’s close of INR 169.65.
The company later stated that through this deal, Arvind Fashions and the Flipkart Group will work collaboratively to help identify opportunities and synergies to innovate and develop products that have strong value propositions at attractive price points.
\”Given the strong existing relationship with the Flipkart Group, and their presence in online fashion, it was an obvious choice for us to enter into this engagement through which Flipkart and Myntra will be our preferred online partner for the Flying Machine brand, while we continue to grow our offline sales through channels like exclusive brand stores, department stores and multi-brand stores,” explained J. Suresh, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Arvind Fashions.
“The partnership with the Flipkart Group will help us accelerate our online growth strategy as we focus our efforts on developing an omni-channel retail approach for Arvind Youth Brands and Flying Machine,” Suresh added.
Arvind Group’s portfolio encompasses renowned fashion brands, both international and indigenous, counting Arrow , US Polo Assn., Calvin Klein, GAP, Ed Hardy, Tommy Hilfiger, Aeropostale, The Children’s Place and Flying Machine . It also has a significant presence in beauty in partnership with Sephora as well as runs a fashion retail chain, Unlimited.