Our Bureau
KOLKATA, 27 July
City-based ITC’s hotel business
expansion and diversification into lifestyle retailing and greeting cards are estimated to
add Rs.2,000 crore to the topline by 2006, according to company officials.
Two new major hotels – Grand Towers in
Mumbai and Sonar Bangla in Kolkata – are likely to be followed by a premium property
in Chennai, where an eight-acre plot has been acquired. The chain of Wills Sport stores
will be another high point in the investment plan and is expected to contribute to the
topline surge.
The new stores will come up rapidly, with
one store or more being added every week till the network of 50 is reached.
The first store will come up on Park Street
in the city by end-August or early-September. The product range and ambience at the stores
have been designed by San Francisco-based American Design Intelligence Group, ITC sources
said.
The growth will be backed by investments,
which will show a definite shift from the trend so far followed by the company.
ITC had invested Rs.1,800 crore in the past
five years, but, while past investment has been heavily biased towards the cigarette
business, the proposed Rs.2,500 crore investment in the next five years will be dominated
by investments in non-tobacco businesses. A focus on the rural sector will be another
feature of ITC’s investment plan. Not all the investments would be in the urban
sector, in view of the need to build on strengths in the rural sector.
For example, a crucial aspect of ITC’s
e-initiative under its e-choupal banner has been the chain of Internet kiosks set up in
the countryside to be the FMCG transaction backbone for other products aimed at the rural
population.