On buying of Raymond shares in the market: I bought shares in the market, and it is a disclosed information, because I believe there is great value in it. Number two, I believe in my company. The fact is that I am willing to invest in my own shares, and I had bought it levels higher than what it is today. I have bought. So whether I am a buyer today or not is not for me to say, but the fact is that I bought it at Rs 900-950 levels. A thousand rupees I bought, so that is all there is to disclose. So, if I am a buyer at Rs1,000, I am certainly a buyer at Rs 750. We are clear that we wanted to launch this 20-acre project, this is to unlock value, and we are in the right direction. We look at it every day, every week, that is the top priority. I am not able to tell you exactly what we are doing because nothing is done. Like they say, it is not done until it is done.
On other non-core assets. The auto space, the hardware business, have been doing extremely well.
On the time he will be looking for buyer. Show me the money. I have demonstrated in my career that I am not averse to buying and selling businesses. If somebody had shown me the money, it would have been gone by now. You might sell it, you might be looking at other options. The fact is philosophically, it is on our radar how to monetise that asset, or whatever we have to do. Selling is one option. That doesn’t mean we are not looking at other things.
Whether the other things include a demerger of the business. It could be anything. Sometimes these things take longer than you expect.
On the roadmap, target in term of scalability and possibility of listing those business separately. What have we done in the last 12-18 months. We had a partner in JK Ansell. For the FMCG business, we bought in a whole new management team, we put a focus into it, we revamped the board, we have an external chairman, this is the only promoter-listed company, holding company where a promoter stepped off as chairman of the company. The bottom line is the same. How do Raymond shareholders get value out of this? We are in the business of making money. That is what we are going to do.
On the debt in the books. At the end of the capex cycle, the capex in Amravati and Ethiopia that took the debt up. Moving forward, we have not got any capex plan. Your cash flows will become positive and your debt will come down. Two, I don’t think we are alarmed about our debt. We might be Rs 2,000 crore and not Rs 200,000 crore, but we want to be debt-free over a period of time.
How long would that be? It is very difficult to say. Today if I monetise the land, tomorrow I will be debt free. If it takes three years, it will take three years but the intent is there to be that direction. I would rather under-commit and over deliver.
On Raymond going to be blue-chip company and growth plan for the same. You have to do the right thing. So each business has a plan. Let me give you an example, in the textile business, whilst we have the legacy business, which is the fabric business, which grows at a particular growth rate, that doesn’t satisfy us. We have the new verticals, ethnic wear today, where we have a big potential now. If you take the ethnic wear market, it is Rs 5,000 crore market. Can I get 20 % of it?
India
NRI
