Titan to raise Rs 786 cr from public deposits

Titan Company, the publicly held retailer of watches and jewellery among other products, proposes to raise Rs 786 crore deposits from the public under its jewellery purchase scheme during the current financial year.

The company, which has been accepting deposits from the public for the past 10 years, has an approval to raise up to Rs 1,511 crore. It already holds Rs 725 crore worth of deposits as of May 2017. The deposits will be raised under the 10-month jewellery purchase scheme, where the customer has to pay 10 installments and the scheme matures after 300 days from the date of joining the scheme, Titan said in a public announcement.

According to the company, the schemes will allow the customer to pay 10 fixed monthly installments of minimum of Rs 2,000 or above (in multiples of Rs 1,000). In a span of 10 months, customer has to pay one installment every month. The mode of payment of installments is either through cash, cheque, DD or electronic payment towards the monthly advances.

The customer is mandatorily required to redeem before 421 days from the date of payment of first installment, it said. “Since it is a jewellery purchase scheme, there is no return offered as interest. However, discount is offered at the time of purchase of jewellery by customers,” Titan said in its public circular.

The discount offered under the scheme at the time of redemption is 75% of one installment upon completion of 365 days from the date of joining the scheme. If a customer redeems after 300 days but before the completion of 365 days, discount ranging between 55% and 75% of one month installment based on number of days will be available as discount.

Titan has been operating these schemes for its customers with effect from November 2014. The current scheme is valid till September 30, 2018 or the date of the company’s annual general meeting in 2018, whichever is earlier. The company has so far raised such deposits from 3,12,943 customers.

The company has secured MAAA rating, which denotes highest credit quality rating from rating agency Icra.