Aditya Birla Fashion picks up 51% stake in Masaba label for ₹90 crore

In yet another sign of consolidation within India’s fashion industry—Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL)—on Friday said it is set to acquire a 51% stake in House of Masaba Lifestyle Private limited, the entity that houses apparel, non-apparel, beauty and personal care and accessories business under brand ‘Masaba’ owned by designer Masaba Gupta for ₹90 crore.

Through investment in brand 'Masaba', ABFRL will strengthen its play into fashion for young and digitally native consumers along with marking a foray into the branded beauty and personal care segment, the company said in a filing to the exchanges. The two will create a young, aspirational and digital-led portfolio play, across the affordable luxury segment in the fashion, beauty and accessory categories.

The brand is targeting to achieve annual revenues of around ₹500 crore in the next five years. In FY21—Masaba Lifestyle Private Limited reported revenue of ₹14 crore. In the current fiscal it is estimated to clock in ₹30 crore in revenue, according to information available in ABFRL’s filing. House of Masaba was founded in 2009—it is engaged in sales and distribution of apparel, non-apparel, beauty and personal care and accessories. The bridge-to-luxury brand offers Prêt, Indian and Indo-Western outfits.

New-age shoppers, and digitally native consumers are actively seeking brands that are colourful, vivid and digital, said Ashish Dikshit, managing director, ABFRL.

For ABFRL the association marks an “important step in building a presence in the fast-growing beauty and personal care segment,” Dikshit said. “This fits in well with our overall strategy to partner India’s topmost designers to build a portfolio of distinctive and aspirational home-grown brands across fashion and lifestyle categories,” he added.

House of Masaba will solidify into a 360-degree, global lifestyle brand of the future, said Gupta. “The House of Masaba already has established a strong foothold among the youth with a robust digital-first strategy and the tie-up with ABRFL will strengthen this position, making the brand future-ready,” she said.

Brand Masaba will be scaled largely through the digital direct to consumer (D2C) channel, straddling across the entire lifestyle offerings ranging from apparel, accessories, beauty and other lifestyle products.

The move follows a series of investments led by two large fashion conglomerates in the country—Reliance Brands Limited (RBL) and ABFRL. In the last two years—the two have snapped up majority investments in popular home-grown Indian designers including Shantanu and Nikhil, Tarun Tahiliani, Sabyasachi, Manish Malhotra, Anamika Khanna. These investments will see the two companies work with the designers and give them more distribution heft, create more bridge-to-luxury collections and expand their customer base.

Wazir Advisors acted as sole advisors on the transaction.

ABFRL part of The Aditya Birla Group has a network of 3,264 stores across approximately 26,841 multi-brand outlets with over 7,094 points of sales in department stores across India. Its portfolio of brands includes Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Peter England, Pantaloons, apart from brands such as Forever 21, American Eagle, Ralph Lauren, Hackett London, Ted Baker and Fred Perry.