Aiming for 20-25% revenue growth in FY17: Mandhana Industries

Mandhana Industries, which sells apparels under Salman Khan's Being Human brand, is expecting 20-25 percent revenue growth despite slowdown in November due to demonetisation.Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Manish Mandhana, Managing Director of the company said sales had dropped in November, but have recovered this month. Second half of the year is expected to be better with festivals and wedding season. The company has about 700 point-of-sales (PoS) and 60 exclusive stores of Being Human worldwide. The company’s debt stands at Rs 7.12 crore. Opening new stores, point of sales – In April this year, Being Human had demerged form Mandhana Industries to form Mandhana Retail Ventures, which will be listing tomorrow. Below is the verbatim transcript of Manish Mandhana’s interview to Reema Tendulkar and Nigel D’Souza on CNBC-TV18.Nigel: All investors out there in terms of subscribing to tomorrows issue or all those who already hold shares by default they want to know in this entity that is Mandhana Retail Ventures listing what is the debt in the books currently? A: When the company was demerged, the debt that we stood at was approximately Rs 17.5 crore which has been reduced to Rs 7.12 crore now because we paid off the rest post demerger. So, as of now, the debt is about Rs 7.12 crore.  Reema: Could you give us a sense of how many stores would Mandhana Retail have, what would be the expected revenues say in FY17 as well as the expected EBITDA of your pure retail arm now? A: Ever since its inception, the brand Being Human, I think as on today we have a wide network. We are present across 700 point of sales globally. We have 60 exclusive brand outlets out of which four are internationally established -- one in France, one in Mauritius and three in Nepal. Alongside, we have presence in all the large format stores of the country which is Shoppers Stop, Globus, Central, Lifestyle, Splash and so on. Also, we have a distribution network across the country in the states where there is not too much of organised retail and of course we have presence across online stores and we have a huge tie up with the Landmark Group in the Middle East where we have 130 point of sales. Also, 75 point of sales in France. Reema: If you could just tell us then the revenue and the EBITDA profile of your retail arm then say by the end of FY17?A: So far we have been able to maintain a very healthy EBITDA in the range of 24-25 percent and we wish to continue that purely because 30 percent of our business is exports which brings us good revenues and also the duty drawback rates have been increased which has added to the bottomline. I think we wish to maintain the same EBITDA levels of 24-25 percent going forward. Nigel: What about the first half of the year? You have done fantastic numbers; the topline growth has been 22 percent, margins of around 25 percent. Can you replicate this, I think last year you have done around Rs 210-215 crore in terms of topline, this time can we see more than Rs 250 crore, what is the number you are working with because you are talking about margins of 25 percent? A: We are easily looking at 20-25 percent growth again this year. Frankly speaking, the second half of the year is always the bigger half because it has all the festivities, wedding seasons and also winter. Our average selling price in winter is way more higher because we do products like jackets, sweaters and heavy winter wear. So, our average selling price increases as well and added with festivities and wedding season, it is always the case that the second half is bigger. For full interview, watch video...