Provogue India = The Fashion Statement

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   Company Profile:
Provogue India is an upcoming fashion retailer of branded apparel and fashion accessories and an emerging retail-cum-real estate play in India. The company was incorporated in November 1997 as Acme Clothing Private Limited and became a public limited company in 2005. It launched the fashion brand ‘Provogue’ in March 1998 and has since then positioned itself as a leading brand in the Indian apparel market.

Core Business:
Provogue designs, manufactures and sells branded ready made garments and accessories under the brand name ‘Provogue’. From being a pure men’s brand, it has expanded its product portfolio to women’s wear, inner wear, leather products and fashion accessories over the last few years. Last year, it added several new lines to its accessories like trolley bags, footwear etc. The company has more than 100 outlets and 65 shop-in-shops in more than 55 cities across all categories in India.

Promart - Reaching Out To Masses:
The company is planning an aggressive penetration into the mass consumer market segment. It launched its first discount department store- Promart in Ahmedabad last year and plans to open 20 such stores in the next three years. The management sees significant growth potential in value retailing of fashion and lifestyle brands going forward.
Prozone - Value Play In Real Estate:
While all this is interesting by itself. What Provogue exciting to investors is that the company has evolved over the last few years from being a pure fashion retailer to an integrated retail business. Prozone, the wholly owned subsidiary of Provogue entered into a 25:75 JV with Liberty International, a leading UK based retail development company which has more than 30 years of experience in shopping center development and managing malls globally. Prozone is involved in the business of retail development and mall management with a focus on tier II cities like Aurangabad, Jaipur, Nagpur, etc. Prozone-Liberty is expected to offer high growth potential in both earnings and value addition for the company in years to come.
Unique Business Model - Huge Unlocking Of Value:
The company’s business model (through its 75% subsidiary, Prozone) is fundamentally about adding to the existing land value, buying and selling properties and reaping rewards through creation of rental stream annuities on some of its properties. It’s plans to fund its projects through the SPV route are expected to ramp up its scale of operations and if taken public, will result in huge value unlocking in the days to come. Each of the SPVs if floated in the market as separate entities would be very valuable.
Recent Developments:
·         Provogue India acquired a majority stake in Pronet Intercative, which is engaged in the process of developing social networking websites. 
·         The company launched a variety of new products in the fashion accessories segment last year and is all set to introduce personal care products at its outlets as part of its category extension. 
·         Recently Provogue India acquired a majority stake in outdoor Ad Agency and sporting which provides outdoor advertising and publicity services. 
·         Triangle India Real Estate Fund LLC, co-promoted by Old Mutual Investment Group Property Investment and ICS Realty will be investing Rs 457 crs for a 27% stake in a step down subsidiary of Prozone. This downstream subsidiary of Prozone Liberty holds stake in four projects being developed in Aurangabad, Indore, Nagpur and Jaipur covering over approximately 1.6 million sq.ft. This increases the valuation of Prozone enormously.

Edited by vijaygawde - 16/Aug/2008 at 5:59pm