IndiaRetailBiz

Vishal Retail, the apparel, FMCG and home products discount retailer, which raised capital from public for its expansion through a highly successful IPO in June, 2007, has posted excellent performance on almost all sales, financial, and other growth parameters, far exceeding the targets set in the offer document.

Vishal to begin with has not only more than doubled number of its megastores from 49 to 108 (28th April, 2008), but it has also expanded its footprint from 29 to 70 cities across the country, occupying 2.28 million sq ft. of retail space.

According to the annual performance review published by the company, the expansion has led to 103% increase in daily footfalls (visitors) from 89,829 to 1,82,396. While, conversion ratio (number of visitors actually by merchandise during the store visit) has marginally increased from 42.2% to 43.1%, due to increased focus on FMCG, the average ticket size (Invoice Amount) has declined significantly (25.3%) from Rs. 550 in the previous year to Rs. 411 this year.

More importantly, as projected earlier, total revenues crossed the milestone mark of 1,000 crore. The total revenue at Rs. 1,014.6 crore during 2007-08 represents an increase of 68% over the previous year’s 605 crore. EBIDTA (Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation, Taxes and Amortisation) margin registered a health rise of 12 basic points (1.2%) during the year. It stood at 12.7% compared to 11.5% of 2006-07. Due to increase in sales, net profit grew 62% from Rs 25 crore to Rs. 40.7 crore, this year.

Besides increased EBIDTA, what augurs well for the company in future is substantial rise in sale of private labels. Their sales grew 5.1% (absolute) from 9.8% to 14.1% representing a relative increase of nearly 44% over the previous year.

Among other developements, Vishal spent around Rs. 7.5 crore on implementing IT backbone for its production and retail facilities. It also added 7,371 employees, taking the strength to 13,423 persons, as at end of the year.