Himatsingka Seide, one of the leading producers of silk fabrics and yarns, plans to expand its retail presence across the country and overseas through ‘Atmosphere’ its home furnishing brand. ‘Atmosphere’ that has 12 stores will be adding three more stores across country and abroad within this year.

Speaking to Deccan Herald on Thurdsay, company’s Executive Director Aditya Himatsingka said, “We are increasing our retail presence overseas, we opened a store at Dubai in May and will be opening one in Singapore next week.”

Mr Himatsingka added that its retail brand Atmosphere contributes around 10-15 per cent of the company’s revenues, and expects this figure to go up in the coming year.

Non-silk foray

The company is also entering the non-silk category, and will soon start manufacturing high-end bed linen for the export and domestic market. For this Himatsingka has set-up a greenfield bed linen project at Hassan SEZ, Karnataka. “On the whole, we are investing around Rs 1,000 crore for our foray into the bed linen category,” Mr Himatsignka informed.

He added that as part of the retail expansion plans the company is also looking at another overseas acquisition. In 2007 Himatsingka Seide made two acquisitions — 70 per cent stake in Giuseppe Bellora SpA, Italy and 80 per cent stake in US-based Divatex Home Fashions.