Out of 50 stores, 12 will be Hallmark Cards, says Archies

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Out of 50 stores, 12 will be Hallmark Cards, says Archies

Pramod Arora, Joint managing director of Archies tells CNBC-TV18 that the company is looking at rolling out about 50 stores in this fiscal.

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Pramod Arora, Joint managing director of Archies tells CNBC-TV18 that the company is looking at rolling out about 50 stores in this fiscal. In January 2011, Archies signed a deal with the US' Hallmark Cards to open exclusive stores around the country. "Around 10-12 stores will be Hallmark stores and about 30 plus stores will be Archies," he said.

For now, he refused to comment on how the company plans to raise Rs 40-50 crore of funds needed for this exercise.

Below is a verbatim transcript of his interview with CNBC-TV18's Reema Tendulkar and Ekta Batra. For complete details watch the accompanying video.

Q: You have a rollout plan of close to about 40-50 odd stores in this fiscal for Archies and even for Hallmark. Could you tell us the investment which will be required for this in this fiscal year and how you plan to raise this?

A: We definitely have plans to rollout 40-50 stores out of which approximately 10-12 stores would be Hallmark and about 30 plus would be Archies stores. On an average approximately Rs 25 lakh worth of investment is required per store. That would entail approximately 10 crore odd of investment.

We have been opening about 30 odd stores every year for the last couple of years and so far we have been funding with internal accruals and partial small bits of debt going around it. Now since we are planning to open on an average about 50 odd stores per year for the next couple of years, we feel the amounts of investments are going to go up.

That is why we had enabling resolution where we have been enabled to raise up to Rs 40-50 crore looking at various options which are best suited at that time and which will enhance the shareholder value too.

Q: Can you give us more details on enabling resolution to raise around Rs 40-50 crore. What route would you possibly adopt and by when?

A: The route would depend because what we have enabled is to raise it through any which way, be it private placement, private equity or any issue of rights etc whichever way the management feels will be good at that point of time including debt.

It's not that debt is being ruled out. It could be a mix of a couple of them. We haven't yet finalised which route we need to take as of now but somewhere down the line we will be looking at various options and deciding on the best way forward.

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