Thank you, Swapnali. On behalf of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, I would like to welcome all the participants to Q4 FY '26 and FY '26 conference call of Raymond Lifestyle Limited.

Today we have with us from the senior management of Raymond Lifestyle Limited: Mr. Rakesh Tiwari, Group Chief Financial Officer; Mr.

Satyaki Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. E.

C. Prasad, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr.

Sunny Deswa, Head, Investor Relations. Without taking further time, I would like to hand the call to Mr.

Satyaki Ghosh. Over to you, sir.

Hi everybody. Thank you for joining this call.

My name is Satyaki Ghosh, and I am the CEO for Raymond Lifestyle Limited. Before we dive into our performance, it is important to acknowledge the totally volatile macroeconomic environment that we are navigating.

While India remains a bright spot with GDP estimates around 6.8 to 7.2%, global headwinds persist. We are closely monitoring from Raymond the US-Iran conflict, which has kept Brent crude prices hovering over $100 and leading to increased energy, raw material prices, and freight costs.

Domestically, we face the dual challenge of extreme heat waves affecting multiple states and below-average monsoon forecast at 92%, which may impact discretionary spending. However, amongst all this doom, there is a silver lining.

The US-India trade deal that currently looks quite open to the entire world and we don't have a disadvantage, the UK-India FTA, and the impending Euro-India FTA can create significant demand recovery for our exports. It is against this backdrop of external volatility and emerging opportunities that Raymond Lifestyle has delivered a strong performance last year.

It is my privilege to address you for the first time, and as I embark on this journey with an iconic brand that boasts of legacy spanning over a century, I want to share the context of my leadership and what will I bring to the table. I have worked about 30 years in FMCG companies like General Electric, PepsiCo, L'Oréal, and I have worked in Indian groups like Spencers Retail, which was RPG, and Aditya Birla Group before joining Raymond Group.

I have experience in FMCG part of the business, and I also have experience in textiles. Hence, Raymond seemed like the right opportunity where I get the opportunity to turnaround a 100-year-old brand and take it to its next logical growth path.

I am also happy to introduce our new Chief Financial Officer, E. C.

Prasad. I'll hand over to Prasad to introduce himself before I come back to address you.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for attending our call today. This is E.

C. Prasad.

I'm a professional with about 29 years of experience. Prior to joining Raymond's just 3 months back, I was the CFO for Bajaj Electricals, and I also worked with Voltas Limited and Emami, predominantly in FMCG, FMGE space.

My focus here would be to strengthen our governance, compliance, and also to build cash and improve our working capital cycles and with improved profitability. Thank you very much.

Coming back, Satyaki here once again. FY '26 has been a year of recovery for Raymond Lifestyle.

Despite international headwinds, we have delivered a healthy performance driven by strong domestic consumption. For the first time in our history, we crossed 7,000 crore mark, recording our highest ever total income of 7,034 crores and 11% year-on-year growth.

EBITDA for the year rose to 804 crores with a 23% year-on-year growth with an EBITDA margin of 11.4%. We remain debt-free with a net cash surplus of 179 crores.

Net working capital improved significantly over last March and has come down by 10 days from 87 days to 77 days, showing efficiency in the system. Complementing the strength, our Q4 '26 performance remained resilient.

We recorded our highest ever Q4 total income of 1,810 crore, a 15% year-on-year growth. EBITDA for the quarter rose by 53% to 152 crores.

Our EBITDA margin improved by 210 basis points Q-over-Q to 8.4%. We created robust cash flows, and we generated close to 200 crores of net cash during this quarter.

Our Q4 performance remained resilient and reflected sustained demand despite a challenging global environment. In our Branded Textile segment, revenue grew 14% to 831 crores in Q4 driven by robust volume growth and premiumization.

EBITDA for the segment grew by 126% to 115 crore on account of improved product mix, strong volume, ASP growth, and scale leverage. Branded Apparel segment, it is to note that our current Branded Apparel segment results include our emerging and new businesses.

It has been the case in the past also. This quarter, we are keeping it the way we have been reporting, but next quarter, we will try to show you separately what are we doing in emerging businesses and what are we doing in our marquee brands, the four brands, which is the core apparel business of Park Avenue, ColorPlus, Raymond Ready-to-Wear, and Parx.

Our new ventures are currently in strategic investment phase, and it will be good for everybody to know how these businesses are developing. The core four brands' revenue was 1,667 crores with EBITDA margin of 7.8% [crores?]

, which is without these new businesses. The core brand are actually quite okay at 7.8%, and we will endeavor to take it to double digit over the next two years' time.

Overall, Branded Apparel, the way we report today, is 469 crores in Q4 with a 20% year-on-year growth. We witnessed double-digit like-to-like growth in retail channels of Branded Apparel segment.

EBITDA for the segment grew significantly to 19 crores. If we exclude the emerging businesses, the margin was at 5.4% in Q4.

The Garmenting business, we saw a demand recovery post the US-India trade deal leading to the highest ever monthly revenue in March. We also implemented duty paid terms for US client, which helped us keep the clients with us throughout the year, and now we will get the benefit of that going into next year.

The segment reported a revenue of 342 crores in Q4 FY '26 as compared to 248 crores in the same quarter previous year, reflecting a growth of 38% YoY. The segment reported an EBITDA of 14 crores in Q4 FY '26 compared to -7 crores in Q4 FY '25, and the EBITDA margin for the quarter was at 4.1%, which is higher than the rest of the year and is much higher than -2.9% in the same quarter last year.

This business is going to go forward at a fast pace next year with the UK and Euro FTAs and US-India trade deal being equitable for the world. In our High Value Cotton Shirting, the B2B segment, revenue grew at 6% to 831 crore in Q4, and EBITDA for the segment was 20 crores.

You can compare it to 61 crores in Q4 last year, but last year's Q4 EBITDA of 61 crores had a 53 crore one-time subsidy from the government for our Amravati plant. The base is high.

If you take that out, then the segment has done actually better than last year same quarter. Now let me talk a little bit about our marketing strategy.

Our new CMO, Kalpana Singh, has just joined in March from HUL, and she'll be leading this for us. We'll introduce her to you maybe next quarter.

Our intent is to move forward from fragmented marketing to a more connected omnichannel system across the full consumer journey. Today we are executing many initiatives: thematic campaigns, impactful ideas, digital and retail efforts.

The whole idea now going forward is to put this in a 360-degree marketing campaign and make each of our brand stand on their own feet and get recognized separately between Park Avenue, Raymond Ready-to-Wear, Raymond MTM, ColorPlus, etc. This year, we have advertised Raymond Linen in a big way.

We've increased our presence in high-impact media like cricket and cinema. If you have watched Dhurandhar 2, we launched our cinema campaign with Dhurandhar 2, and we have started building digital and influencer ecosystem.

Linen is doing very well for us at the moment. At Raymond Lifestyle Limited, we have a target-driven ESG roadmap.

Our emission reduction strategy runs across three levers: renewable energy, fuel transition, and operational efficiency. All these three are active simultaneously.

On renewable energy, we are on track to increase our renewable percentage between 5 to 6% this year from our baseline of FY '25, and we remain on track to increase this to 25% of our total energy requirement by 2030. On Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, we have reduced between 4 and 5% this year from our baseline year of FY '25, and we are on track to reduce these by 15% by 2030.

The leadership transitions during the quarter marked a new chapter for the business. With the recent appointment of Rakesh Tiwari as Group CFO, Prasad as Lifestyle CFO, and myself as the CEO, and I just introduced Kalpana as the new CMO, Raymond Lifestyle Limited is poised to accelerate its growth agenda.

The new leadership brings a renewed focus on expanding Branded Apparel, scaling newer categories, and driving operational efficiencies across the value chain. As we enter FY '27, we would like to call this the year of consolidation as we are shifting focus from restoring sustainable profitability, and we will do it through a lean and high-performing network.

We plan to add a gross of about 100 EBO stores in FY '27. However, we will continue to exit underperforming stores during the year, and we think the net increase would be 30 to 40 this year.

Once we stabilize, then maybe year after, we will see if we can go aggressive on store opening or not. That we will decide depending on the results of this year.

In terms of digital transformation, our investments in S/4HANA that we must have been talking about has now been implemented in the textile and home part of our business, and this will modernize our supply chain and enhance operational agility. For FY '27, our strategic growth pieces, the number one piece is premiumization across all segments.

In suiting, shift towards wool; in shirting, shift towards linen; in apparels, towards the premium category of apparels. The second lever that we are going to push is casualization.

In Branded Textiles, we'll focus on comfort-first fabrics. We will focus on hybrid blends, relaxed visual aesthetics, versatile wearability, and knitwear.

In Branded Apparel, we'll move the product mix towards smart casuals, polos, chinos, t-shirt, corduroy, denim, etc. With our core portfolio, ColorPlus is the brand that is positioned as the primary casual brand to spearhead our casualization strategy, with our remaining three brands of Park Avenue, Raymond Ready-to-Wear, and Parx providing robust secondary support to drive this transition.

Number one is premiumization, number two is casualization. We will also go towards GTM expansion in MBOs and LFS counters.

In large-format stores, our apparels are doing very well with SSPD right up with the top brand of the category, and in some LFSs, we are the top brand. The whole idea is to enter LFSs on the casual section.

We will also work on holistic marketing campaigns, as we talked about, sharper brand positioning for each of our brands, differentiated communication, prudent media selection, and last-mile activities to drive awareness and footfall in our EBOs. Our ESG commitment would remain, and we are advancing towards our 2030 goals, including the 25% renewable energy target and 40% female representation in our company.

By integrating digital agility with transparent oversight, we are building a resilient, future-ready institution for all stakeholders. We hope that this year of consolidation actually gives us good growth and decent profitability.

With that, thank you very much, and we are now open for questions.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, ma'am.

My first question is on gross margin. Could you please explain what caused the decline in gross margins, as we were doing 54 to 55 percentage of range in gross margins, now this quarter, we declined to 51, 52%?

First question on gross margin. My second question is on EBITDA margin.

What would be our range for the coming 2 to 3 years in EBITDA margin? Additional question is our gross margin declined, but our EBITDA margin expanded, manufacturing expenses went down, employee cost went down, are these sustainable decline, or just one-time?

These are my two questions on gross margin and EBITDA margin.

Thank you, sir, for your question. On the gross margin, I think I mentioned in my commentary that last year in our B2B RLCL luxury cotton, luxury linen business, we had got a 53 crore subsidy on our Amravati plant from the government, which was a one-time go.

That is in the base. If you take that out, then the Q4 will look like 44.7%.

It's in the ballpark. For the year, including this 53 crores in the base, we have still ended up at 44%.

If you remove that, we will be in the ballpark. There's no drop in gross margin.

The EBITDA has still grown. If you look at our opex, you'll see in quarter four, our income grew 15%, our opex grew 1.2%.

For the year, income grew 11%, and opex grew 5%, which means income grew faster, and that has flown into EBITDA. The second thing that you must recognize here, how did the opex come down as a percentage: our factory utilizations, which traditionally used to be between 80-85%, have all gone above 90%.

There are factories which we have operated at 95% plus also, and this has given us a lot of scale advantage. It has given us drop in opex, it has given us scale advantage, which has flown into EBITDA.

The whole idea is that if we do a higher turnover this year than last year, then the factories should keep running at this pace, and hence, the opex should be sustainable. Hence, EBITDA should hold.

The third question for you was the future EBITDA. We are not giving a guidance at this stage.

However, our idea is even in the year of consolidation to keep a double-digit top-line growth and a double-digit bottom-line growth.

Sir. Thank you.

No, ma'am. Can you please explain more on employee cost?

It is currently 12.5% of the sales, in the last quarter, say last quarter of the 4Q '25, it was 15%. What caused the decline in employee cost?

Sorry, can you repeat the question one more time, sir? It was not clear this side.

Employee cost went down. In the 4Q '25, it was around 15% of the sales.

This quarter, it is around 12 to 13% of the sales. What caused reduction in employee cost?

I wanted to know.

Or

on absolute basis, it's declined around 1.5%. That's all I want to know.

Two things: one is we stay with our factory efficiencies. When factory produces more, the employee cost per unit starts going down.

On an absolute basis, because Garmenting last year was not getting a lot of orders because of US, the utilization was a little low, and there, labor is a little variable. That cost got saved.

Finally, as we have been for a year or so closing down our non-profitable stores, and when you close down your non-profitable stores, two things happen: one is your employee cost goes down. On the other hand, stores that make consistent losses, if they get closed down, actually your profit goes up.

You get positive effect from both sides. We are opening calibrated stores.

It's not that we have closed massive amount of stores. What we have closed, we have roughly opened.

Bad stores have gone, so that has reduced employee cost and has also increased profit by a little delta. You get all kinds of positive effects when you rationalize, and those are right things for business.

That's my answer.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you, sir. One more question on store opening in FY '27.

Could you please repeat how many stores we are targeting in FY '27?

FY '27 on a gross basis, we'll try more than triple digit, more than 100 stores, but we will continue our this endeavor, which has given us very good not-so-good stores we will close down. I think net basis, it will be between 30 and 40 stores because this is the year of consolidation.

We are not doing anything dramatically different this year, and we will just concentrate on giving good growth and good profitable growth on a sustainable basis for four quarters before we embark on the next big journey. Just to tell you, 100 gross and maybe between 30 and 40 net.

Just to tell you that we are also employing one of the big consultancy firms to build a three-year strategy for us. The work the job has been awarded, and we will start work on the strategy piece, and then in 3 months, we will start implementing that.

This year, as the consolidation year, we will do all the right things in the right way around governance, around ESG, around the way we do our quarter businesses in a profitable, sustainable manner, get the store economics right, get the factory economics right, build our strategy. From next year, we hope with a good base, we start the next level of acceleration with a very, very good partner handling it with us.

Sir. Sir, in terms of our emerging and new business, how much is the run rate in terms of this segment, emerging and new businesses, which is included in our Branded Apparel revenues?

How much is about

Generated from emerging and new business.

It's more than 120 crores, I think.

In 4Q '26? Okay.

Q4 ki yeah, 120. For the year is about 140 crores, but on this 140 crores, because we invest in these businesses, we incur losses.

When you start looking at the four core brands, if you take out roughly 125, 140 crores of turnover, and if you add back the losses to the profit, then you start seeing that the four apparel brands actually deliver between 7.5, 8% profit already. It gets shaded by all this, and from next quarter, we will show you what is emerging, what is the four core brands, and we will give you the history also if you want because we'll cut the data like that, and we will be consistent with that data.

Right now, there is about 140 crores

and

with 80 crores loss. If you take out from the turnover 140 crores and if you add back 80 crores, you will see the business of the brands is looking not so bad as it looks right now in the reporting.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

140 crore top-line gone, 80 crores profit increased. It just changes the game.

Yeah. Got it, sir.

Got it.

Hello. I have a question regarding geographical.

Management plans to reduce US dependency in Garmenting

Ma'am, we can't hear you properly.

Yes. Am I audible?

It's not very clear. If you come closer to the mic or something like that.

Sir. I have questions regarding geographical.

Management planning to reduce US dependency in Garmenting from 65 to 50. With this recovery in Q4 following the US-India trade deal, why is the strategic shift towards the UK and EU is still a priority given to a potential for higher logistical cost?

Ma'am, I'll try and explain this to you. We had about 65, 66% dependency on US.

Now any sane business will say that when you have high penetration in a vendor or in a customer or in a geography, you are susceptible to rude shocks. Now this is what happened to us as the tariff started coming in, 65, 67% of our business went into trouble.

We started this process of expanding our geographical base, and we were scouting in Asian markets, strong Asian markets, and also European and UK markets. The advantage that we got was the UK FTA was announced, and now the EU FTA is also announced, though they are not implemented, but will get implemented.

We started getting a lot of interest from these places. Contrary to belief, Europe can give you good margins also.

For example, if you look at the West Asia conflict, if you look at from Indian ports, Nhava Sheva, this, that, to the American ports, the freight cost has gone up. If you look at from these same ports to European ports, the cost has actually come down last month.

From a freight perspective also Europe is better, and from margin perspective, it is not bad. It increases my Europe FTA concentration.

The US orders have also started coming back, and hence, as a directional guidance, I'm saying that the Garmenting business next year should be good for us because US orders will come back, but we'll have incremental orders from Europe, the mix will change, the margin structure will become better, and hence, our top-line if it grows by high double digits, the bottom-line will grow at a much faster pace than that in Garmenting.

Sir. Sir, have you felt any recent disruption in raw material sourcing or export shipping timelines due to this US-Israel-Iran conflict?

As of now, no. I think when troubled times come, bigger companies are more resilient to hold because we can hold some working capital.

Two main raw materials come from abroad. One is wool, which comes from Australia.

There is frankly no major disturbance between Australia and India. It's on the other side of the world, and containers are also available.

Freight has also not moved too much. Wool, there is no problem.

Suiting has no problem. The only thing that comes majorly from Europe is flax for the linen.

Here, I'm seeing India to Europe and Europe to India freights are actually slightly better in April than March. Going forward, we think it'll be okay.

All of you have seen today's headline news, right? That Iran and US are trying to at least take steps forward towards opening Strait of Hormuz.

It is all over the news today. I think stock markets are going up because of that.

If that happens this quickly, I think we will be very well-positioned to take advantage of that.

Sir. Got it.

Sir, you are also focusing on shifting the product mix towards wool and linen across all the segments. What is the expected impact on your ASP and gross margin from this?

The gross margin should go up because two things here: number one is as you sell more premium products, directionally, your gross margin should go up. However, currently, there is a challenge that the wool prices are going through the roof, merino wool prices.

Also, flax prices are going up. We have information that Flax is one crop a year, but this year's crop is right now looking good.

It gets harvested in September, it is on the fields right now, and it is looking good. The flax prices are also up.

Now when both prices are up, then protecting margin even in a premium situation can become debatable. On the one hand, we are going for premiumization.

On the other hand, raw material prices are up. We think overall, we should still look at some gross margin improvement, but it may not be humongous because there are tailwinds and there are headwinds both.

Sir. Sir, on the sleepwear side, I guess you are deciding to stop that.

What was the annual drag on the EBITDA from this segment?

Is about 20 cr was the annual drag. That we should get back, but this year to do that, we have had to take some provisions, and that is evident, I think, in the data that you have.

Okay. Sir, one last question.

What is the margin difference between a MBO and EBO and LFS?

The best margins come in EBO because there you are D2C, ma'am. It is your product, it is your store, and the consumer buys directly from you.

There is absolutely no doubt that for any company, EBO is the most profitable channel. After which comes the MBO because in MBO, you distribute, and the consumer buys.

In LFS, it is like for a FMCG company modern trade, LFS is like that for us, that the retailer is also strong, and they negotiate. When they negotiate, you also think that you build brand when you go to a LFS.

For example, if you go to a Shoppers Stop and see a beautiful 12-ft, 16-ft wall of Park Avenue or Raymond Ready-to-Wear or Ethnix, then it registers to you that this is a brand of importance. More LFSs in Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Reliance, and these kind of Central, these kind of LFSs keep your brand, it becomes easier to distribute in MBOs because the MBOs then recognize you as a bigger brand.

Everything has its utility, but profit-wise, EBO first, MBO second, and LFS third, from a pure profit perspective.

Okay. Sir, what is the targeted revenue split between this channel?

These guidances actually we do not provide, but if you look at, there'll be a e-commerce piece also in there. Out of offline, you can imagine EBO will be our biggest channel followed by MBO, followed by LFS in terms of volume because LFS are only those many in the country, right?

MBOs, there are a lot of numbers, and EBO, we are free to sell what we sell. How many ever doors we want to open.

Sir. Thank you so much.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for this opportunity.

My question is regarding the Branded Textile segment, which is our core cash cow. If I look at it four years back and till now, the revenues were barely up, and the profitability has actually declined compared to the FY '23 levels.

I know there is a bit of uncertainties that happened in between, but how should we look this segment going forward? What are the opportunities here in terms of the profitability drivers?

Sir, can you please repeat the question once more? It is not very clear on this side.

Am I audible now?

Better now.

Yeah. My question is regarding the Branded Textile segment, which is the cash cow for the company.

If I look at the numbers from FY '23 to '26 over the last four years, revenue has barely gone up, and profitability has declined. I understand that there are a few things that went wrong, but how should we look at this segment going forward?

I'm not asking for a guidance, but what would be the drivers of profitability for this segment?

Branded Textile as a business in India keeps growing at a particular growth rate, low to medium single digit. The business is also moving from particular tier of cities to the next layer of cities, where the demand for fabric and stitched fabric still remains.

The occasion for stitch fabric is largely around marriages and occasions and Diwali and festivals, etc., when large-scale buying happens. The good piece here is that the Tier 1, 2 cities are coming back to designers and bespoke tailoring.

More and more in cities like Bombay and Delhi, you'll see designer shops opening up. They are not only the big designers, but a lot of small designers creating bespoke, and that's an opportunity for fabric business.

Fabric business going forward, my take is that should keep growing in lower single digit in volume. We will premiumize, we will try to do value growth higher than volume growth.

We will also casualize, like I said, because people are moving from full suits to jackets. They're moving to corduroy, they're moving to blended material which suits them in every occasion and every climatic condition.

We will adapt to these, we will service the top-end boutique distribution, we will go to lower-town classes, and as Raymond, we support a large ecosystem of tailoring, which we will ramp up from this year onwards once more à la almost how hairdressers' thing was supported by some of the beauty companies. We are going to build that.

I have experience in it. I came from L'Oréal, and we changed the salon industry.

We will try to do things for the tailor and try to be the best recommended brand. This is a cash cow, our job is to protect this.

Second, on the export side, when you do fabric business, you should also know how to do good export business because the world buys readymades, but readymades need fabric. You can do profitable business in Europe and US by exporting fabrics, we will explore that with more intensity along with our Garmenting business, which is pure fabric export.

We will find levers in lower-town classes, in boutique business, in export businesses by premiumizing, by casualizing, by working with the tailors to build this business. I believe that we will build gross margins over here, and I believe it'll come back to the older levels of profitability over a period of time.

Okay. Understood.

The next question is simply regarding the Branded Apparel. In this space, you have recently built a 2,000 crores of brands.

Even if I look at it the pre-Ind AS EBITDA margin adjust for the rental cost, even at a 2,000 crores base also, it is still in the loss-making. Apart from the A&P that you'll be trimming down going forward, what are the levers for this segment?

Our strategy remains consistent. Number one, I'll reiterate again, is premiumization, and number two is casualization.

Amongst the four brands, ColorPlus is our frontrunner for our casualization drive. If you look at the consumer today, consumers are wearing, like I said, less suits, but more jumpers, more jackets.

People are wearing a lot of knitwear. People are wearing a lot of denim.

People come to office with denim. We will lead this casualization charge with ColorPlus.

We are changing the entire design system. We are putting digitization in design system.

I don't want to use the much-clichéd AI word, but today everybody is moving towards that, and we are taking steps towards building our design capabilities on AI. We will shorten our supply chain, we will shorten the turnaround time, and we will have much better designs, which will come through web crawling of the best of the best in the world.

Our design capabilities are going up. ColorPlus will lead this charge.

If you look at brands like Raymond Ready-to-Wear and Parx at the lower price point, but ColorPlus more in the EBO and the more evolved segment, in terms of Park Avenue and Raymond Ready-to-Wear, our casual portfolio is right now about 15% of our total revenues, and we are still quite a formal-looking brand. The whole idea is to push the limits and take it from it was 10% a year before, it's 15% now, to take it towards 20-25%, and over a period of time, aim towards 45%.

Which does not mean that I will let go of the formal segment where I'm strong. I just have to grow on the back of casualization.

In the formal segment, we are making special products, the non-iron shirts where you don't have to iron, etc., etc., and we will keep premiumizing. These are the segments that we will focus on where the K-shaped recovery will help us with an opportunity over there.

We will change the design system, we will force casualization, we will work on premiumization, we will improve our product quality, and distribution will keep becoming better because I talked about stores opening and stores closing. We will be more calibrated and keep our apparel stores in the higher-town classes and stop some stores which are not making so much money and not making sense.

The mix keeps becoming better, and it keeps giving us operational efficiency, and we get into a virtual cycle.

Okay. Got it.

One last bookkeeping question. The capex for this year is around 180 crores.

Can you give the break up of this? How should this number be going forward?

The capex for the next year also would remain almost on similar lines. Out of the 180 crores, 50 crores is on account of our SAP implementation that we did, about 60 crores on account of our new factory for the Garmenting, which you have in Hyderabad, and the balance are all maintenance capex.

That's good, sir. I'll join in the queue.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is for Mr.

Ghosh. Sir, it's still fairly early days in your tenure, would just like to hear your thoughts on what excites you with this 100-year-old brand that you are now at the helm of.

Which of the verticals, whether it is the Branded Apparel or the Garmenting, do you see holds a lot of potential? If it does even come close to potential, we could possibly see doubling or tripling or more over the next 2, 3 years.

Thank you for the encouragement. I missed your name.

Mayank. Thank you very much.

It's almost like a warm welcome to the job. Coming from somebody who's not my boss or not from the organization.

Really happy to get the question. I'll tell you my motivation of joining this organization.

I think when you get a chance in your life to work for a 100-year-old brand, and everybody thinks, even analysts like you think that there's an opportunity of doubling and tripling it, you imagine if you're in the thick of the things and you're the guy who's supposed to lead that, it gives you a huge amount of excitement, energy, gives you enough topics to stay awake in the night, right? We also know and you as analysts know that Raymond has promised and always not delivered to that expectation.

I would try to make promises that I can keep, and I want to be a person who really builds this with a lot of passion. There's an opportunity of a cultural change here.

There's an opportunity of complete digitization over here. Then you imagine that you are at the helm of a brand, Raymond, which arguably is a top 10 brand in India amongst Indian brands.

If you ask an average consumer, "Tell me 10 brands," on the street, he may say SBI, I don't know, he may say LIC, he can potentially say Raymond. All of us, I think, we have had one Raymond suit.

All of you can ask yourself, maybe your shaadi suit was Raymond. Mine was, for sure.

When I got this opportunity, and I thought it's a 360-degree revival of the brand, but the brand already does 7,000 crores, already has double-digit EBITDA, it is not that you're going into a pond where you have to discover the pond. The water is there.

You have to clean it and make it bigger and make it much bigger. I think the opportunity really excited me, and hence, I came.

From the verticals that you talked about, I think the biggest opportunity for us is Branded Apparel. Last gentleman asked me that, "You built a business of close to 2,000 crores.

Where do you think it can go?" I think if I stay a decade and work a decade for this organization, sky is the limit.

We should really double down on Branded Apparel and build our brands, make them digital, make them relevant for the new-age consumer. The big challenge for me would be the brand piece where Raymond, everybody thinks it's my brand because I am quite old now.

I'm seeing Satyaki's brand. Earlier they used to call it uncle's brand.

Now I am the uncle, actually. I don't want to be the target consumer for Raymond.

I want somebody who's much younger than me to be the target consumer, and I have to create it with my marketing team, and I am really excited about it. Then there are ancillary brands like Park Avenue, like Ethnix.

Everybody has a right to live, and how do we build the brand step-by-step by step. I think that excites me.

Branded Apparel, big opportunity. Garmenting, I think, huge opportunity because nobody makes suits like us.

We make suits for brands that on this call, I cannot take my customers' names, but if you come and meet me someday, I can take you to my factory and show you which global big brands that you buy suits at I don't know what prices are made by Raymond because Raymond is one of the best organizations to make suits globally. Shirts also we make well, but suits, you have to come to us to see how well we make suits in Garmenting.

Our product is fantastic. Our reach in US was great.

We will double down on Europe and UK, and I think this business can really step up. That's my feeling.

Some of the nascent businesses, let me talk about. Our home business turned EBITDA-neutral last year, and it should make some money this year.

Our innerwear business, which we were struggling with, our products are fantastic. If you go to the market and buy Park Avenue top-end innerwear, you will see the product is as good as the runaway market leader, if not better.

That's the feedback that we are getting. This year, we will consolidate on innerwear also.

We will clean up the system and put new product. I can assure you that in the next two years, innerwear as a add-on to my apparel business would be another profitable business that we start driving.

There are many, many verticals that I'm very excited about. Does that answer your question?

Yes, sir. Wonderful, wonderful.

My next question is for Mr. Prasad.

Sir, I'm sorry if this is a repetition, I just wanted to understand on the store count as we indicated we will continue to rationalize the underperforming stores. We've seen the network now come to about 1,650-odd stores.

If this continues for the next two or three quarters, do we see the network dipping below 1,600, or would it go as low as, say, 1,500?

I know

one doesn't have the answer

No, no, I will take the question. It will not dip below 1,650 [1653?]

. In a particular month, it might, that I open 10 and close 15, but for the year, we will open more than 100 gross, and we will close in between 50 and 60.

Net 40 addition will be there, and at the end of next year, I think you should hear a number around 1,700. This year is about consolidation, right?

That is why we are not going very gung-ho. EBO, like I indicated to the lady before, is our most profitable channel, and we will take off on this at some point in time.

We just want to be ready. We want to keep our strategy ready.

We are working with the strategy partner. We want to understand the clear science of opening 90% stores that are right because everybody makes mistake.

We will get all those pieces right, and most probably, if we do decent this year, then next year, we will really talk about expansion. That we will see closer to the end of this year.

That's the answer.

Noted. Just one last question from my side.

Fairly commendable performance on the working capital front. Sir, what further levers do we see to take this even lower?

I'm talking about the NWC days.

I think I think there are a lot of a lot of levers, especially around debtors. We have now started our reviews trying to bring down our clam down on the overdue outstanding.

All of that has actually helped us. We will also be working on the inventory, and we are actually targeting less than 70 days of working capital, sorry, yeah, less than 70 days of working capital in the next financial year.

We came from 87 to 77 this year. We will target another 8, 9 days to take off from the working capital and give you a much happier picture next year.

This is what we would attempt. We think there are enough levers to do that.

Wonderful, and wish you all the best.

Thank you, sir.

Hello. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.

My question is on a relatively smaller business, which is Raymond Ethnix. Just wanted to understand how is the competitive intensity there, how is the demand?

In last 1, 1.5 years, after the success of Manyavar, there has been sudden jump in many regional or even smaller players who have come up in the space, especially if you see UP or Bihar market, there are many small players who have actually ramped up. I just wanted to understand how is the overall growth here and what kind of opportunities do you see here?

You're right. Ethnix, this shaadi market, Manyavar really led it.

Kudos to them that they did, and hence, others have jumped out. This market keeps growing, and we will participate in this growth.

I think we are recalibrating, like I said, this year is about consolidation. We are recalibrating this business, and we are thinking that where do we have the right to succeed?

There's a Manyavar brand which is doing well, you are saying, last 1, 1.5 years, maybe the growth is not that high for them because others have come in, exactly what you said, in other markets, local players are coming in. In this category, as you would understand, that a Bengali shaadi and a Punjabi shaadi and a Tamil shaadi and a Maharashtrian shaadi, the dresses are quite different.

It is quite difficult for a national brand to replicate something in their factory like a black suit and sell it everywhere. This is about customization.

That we realized after running Ethnix for some time. Hence, we think that for the year of consolidation, we will concentrate on the product on two fronts: on the product, rather than being the bridegroom's main brand, we would be the brand for everybody else around the bridegroom.

These are lighter products, less structured, but the numbers are higher. Once we double down on this, this is like kurtas, bandis, what used to be called Nehru jackets, what is now called Modi jackets, those kind of stuff, we will really double down on them because here, apart from our Ethnix stores, we have a right to succeed in our The Raymond Shop, where you go in to buy suiting, shirting, or my readymade apparels, you might want to buy a kurta, etc., from me.

That distribution for me is given. My EBO network is very solid, and it is growing.

I have a right to win as a bridegroom's friends' brand. I let the bridegroom buy from the local guys who are really sitting in Bihar and know what the Bihari bridegroom wants, maybe better than me.

Second, I think we will also venture into Indo-Westerns, which are, let's say, Indo-Western is a bandhgala instead of a sherwani. We make the best suits in the world.

At least in the country, there is absolutely no doubt that who makes the best suits. In those factories, a bandhgala is really a very decorated jacket.

We have a right to win on our production capabilities and design capabilities on that. Once again, it becomes the bridegroom's party's dress, bandhgala, while the bridegroom may be wearing a sherwani that is very locally designed.

We will get onto this, and the third piece that I talked about is AI stepping into designing. This is the next big tool for us to attack the bridegroom with heavy products.

That maybe we will do after our year of consolidation. This year, we will clean up our Ethnix business, we will provide merchandise, we will distribute it better through our TRS stores apart from our Ethnix stores, and we will attack the bridegroom's friends while the bridegroom can come in the future.

By that time, we'll get our hyperlocal design sensibilities right. Does that answer your question?

Yes, sir. I think that is very detailed answer.

Thank you for that, and all the best for FY '27.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a good set of numbers.

Sir, firstly, on the Branded Apparel segment, wanted to understand how should we think about the sustainability of this growth momentum we have witnessed going forward? You believe the current growth in this Branded Apparel can sustain over the next few quarters?

Thank you for the question. I think the directional answer is an emphatic yes.

The only problem in India is that today people are getting a little spooked by the West Asia war and the way the share market is going. When share market doesn't do well, the affluent class, they don't lose money.

I don't believe they lose money. They're just seeing their paper money go down.

They feel that their conspicuous consumption should not be that much. That is the only problem.

The growth projections for the country, which were at high 7.something high, are coming down towards 6.8, 6.6. Different agencies are talking about that.

That indicates that the conspicuous consumption comes down. Branded Apparel, frankly, is not dal, rice, etc.

It is not essential. It is just good to have.

Most categories that we do business in, right from my food FMCG days to personal care FMCG days, I have worked in discretionary categories, and discretionary categories in small price points actually bounces back very well because in difficult times, you don't put big investments in big things that you want to do, but you still want to satisfy yourself as a consumer, and you buy the smaller things that give you happiness. Hence, I think Branded Apparel, directionally, will keep growing.

India is urbanizing, India is moving forward directionally, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that our growth momentum will drop.

Right. Sir, that is helpful.

Sir, secondly, on this Garmenting business, is there scope for this current traction to continue going forward?

Actually, next year next year, Dev, should be much better than this year because the US the thing has become better. US is responding.

Our order books are solid. Let me tell you that my first quarter order books are completely full.

I am doing the latter half of second quarter order booking right now. Our order books are solid.

Unless something dramatic happens in the Middle East war or, US comes back with another 30-40% tariff under some other pretext, in the current business situation, order books are very robust, and there's absolutely nothing to worry about growth in this business. Sir,

have the inventory levels across our customers now normalized, could that also potentially act as a tailwind for us in the next 2, 3 quarters going forward, or

US I am thinking you're still on the Garmenting business. The US pipelines are quite good because US could not import from a lot of countries, not only India.

People who got 35% also, everything that they import, the prices were going up, right, for the consumer there. They kept holding, kept holding, and they kept selling.

Their pipelines are decent right now. There is no major in US, and US orders are coming back.

Europe, the markets are not great, but like I said, every difficulty, we've seen post-COVID, the recovery always has been K-shaped. The premium part of the market, actually there is no problem where we operate in Europe as well.

In the domestic market, like I said, with 6.6, 6.8, 7.2, these kind of GDP growth numbers, if a brand that is not the market leader, like our Branded Apparels and we are not market leaders, if we do not beat the GDP growth percentage, then, you have to do it. Hence, I think the double-digit growth should happen in Branded Apparel.

All right. Sir, that is helpful, sir.

That's all from my side. Thank you, and all the very best.

Thank you, Dev.

Thank you for the opportunity. Most of my questions have been answered.

I just have one question for Rakesh, sir. He's on the call, right?

Rakesh is not there on the call. Prasad, E.

C. Prasad is there.

Okay. I had a question that Raymond Limited has bought around 4.85% of our company's stock.

What's the rationale over there, and are they planning to increase this? I think maybe Prasad can't answer this.

No,

give your thoughts on this.

Rakesh will answer this. Maybe the next quarter when we speak, you come back with this question.

I'll get Rakesh on the call.

Okay. Thank you, and all the best for this year.

Thank you, sir.

Hi, good evening, Mr. Satyaki.

Congratulations on your new job, and wish you all the best. I'm sure we are in safe hands.

The question to you is, like our corporates, I'm sure you work on forward-looking numbers. What is the revenue target that you see 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years down the line?

During the call, I heard you say 10 years from now. I wish you and me both are here.

What are the numbers we are looking at at that stage?

Sir, I have done 100 days of Raymond job, and I have done 88 days of the job after taking charge. I've taken charge on 9th February, you are talking to me on 7th May, 88 days.

February is a smaller month, if I calculate lesser. Difficult for me to talk about 10-year and 5-year turnover plans.

Directionally, in these first 90 days, I have gone through a pitch process of the top consultants of the country, and we have finalized one of them. We will shortly announce that, and they will work on our long-term strategy for us.

We will work together and see what are the opportunities, what are the levers that we can push, and how can we take this company somewhere. Another individual investor, I think, said that Raymond can double, can triple if you push the right levers.

Mentally, I am there with you. Number-wise, I'm not sure because I'm still new in this business, though I'm absorbing very, very fast and totally in charge right now.

I would like to give it some more time before I start committing these kind of numbers.

Got it, sir. A leading question from here: what is the timeline we have with our consultant to come with a plan?

Can we look at it in the next concall?

Most probably no, because we've just finalized. One round of cost negotiation Prasad and team will do and so that you are a investor in the company, you don't want us to hire a consultant at the wrong price.

We will get the price right, and maybe if we start now, they will start work around 20th, 25th May, if not 1st June, because they'll have to get a team together, etc., etc. Strategy project is also somewhere between 12 to 14 weeks, and then presentation another 2 weeks, let's look at 16 weeks.

June, we're looking at October. I think November-ish, we should have a plan and start execution on it.

Let's say third quarter. After that, maybe we can have a discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Ghosh.

I see that actually we are on track and hope we keep at it. All the best.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, ma'am. I would like to thank all the investors, whether you corporates or individual investors, for attending the call and asking questions that were very, very pertinent and thought-provoking.

Some of the questions we are taking back with us. We will try to answer them in due course of time, like the last gentleman's question also.

We just want to assure you that a new management team from Group CFO to me, to your CFO, which is Raymond Lifestyle CFO, your new CMO, and we are right now on the lookout for a new CIO, which hopefully we should be able to announce next quarter. We are creating a new management team.

We are really excited about this 100-year-old brand and its transformation. This year will remain the year of consolidation after the year of recovery, where we have recovered well: double-digit top-line growth, very high double-digit 20% plus bottom-line growth.

We will look at this year once again as a double-digit growth in the year of consolidation. Bottom-line should grow faster than top-line, we will give you decent returns this year.

If we consolidate and build our strategy well this year, then next year, maybe we will talk to you about some kind of acceleration and moving forward. Thank you very much meanwhile for remaining invested.

I'm Satyaki. I have worked with big multinationals globally: in Paris with L'Oréal, in Thailand with ABG, in Hong Kong with Pepsi.

I come with the best practices from these organizations. I worked for General Electric, and I am really committed to turning this Raymond lifestyle business around along with Rakesh, Prasad, Kalpana, and all of them.

You are in good hands, and we hope we will deliver on our promises this year. Thank you very much.