Popley group to offload stake via equity issue

The Popley group, retailer of jewellery and luxury brands, is planning to offload part of its stake through an equity issue in a year.

"The company is looking at raising funds to finance its expansion plans," said Rajiv Popley, director, Popley Group.

The group is planning to expand its retail formats, Le Classique and Diatime. While Le Classique is focused on jewellery and accessories such as watches and mobile phones costing over Rs 45,000, Diatime is the department store brand which stocks a range of diamond jewellery and time wear.

The company recently tied-up with a high-street label from France. The French fashion brand, Kookai, will now be available in Diatime outlets.

Though, Kookai is predominantly an apparel brand, Popley said, at present, they would focus on watches.

Diatime is predominantly a store-in-store format, present in Shoppers' Stop and Globus. It will soon be opening its brand boutique in Mumbai by the end of the year. Additionally, the Popley Group has also tied up with Lifestyle and Pantaloon to retail through their stores.

It stocks eight jewellery and watch brands such as Omega and Tissot and the plan is to nine more brands in one year. Leather accessories and writing instruments, through Estee Dupont is one more area where the company is keen on expanding.

Also planned are brand stores for Swatch and Tissot. Apart from Mumbai, the group also has a presence in Dubai where it is on an expansion mode.

"After 2008, we will also tap new markets internationally starting with London. In India too we will move to the other metros with our formats after one year," said Popley.

Besides the Diatime expansion, the group also plans to expand its private labels like Rhea, Emotions, Diamond IDs and Bandhan.

The group has a turnover of Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.50 billion) and is looking at touching Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.50 billion) by next year.