Arvind Lifestyle Brand bought GAP the U.S. fashion brand in India, and now due to COVID-19, the brands are terminating their franchise. This is one of the most significant causalities that is being witnessed in fashion retail. GAP entered India in 2014 but being a luxury brand, the growth of the brand in India was slow. The brand might leave India or reduces its presence in the country to recover losses.
Arvind Lifestyle Brand has bought numerous franchises to India, Arrow and U.S. Polo being few of them. But GAP is the only one what is charging double the royalty on the brand. Seeing the current COVID condition, it will take to recover the premium brands. Terminating GAP is Arvind’s strategy to focus on a few of his profitable brands. There are few of the boutiques who are interested in keeping the U.S. brand in India. But in future GAP presence might be virtually non-existent.
In the previous fiscal year, the company made a loss of 34cr, and in the current fiscal year, GAP made a loss of 50cr. The losses of the company were rising due to COVIS-19 the sale in August dropped down by 44 per cent. It was becoming difficult for the company to recover losses, so they mutually decided to terminate the contract.
Arvind Fashion was somehow able to strong-arm his balance sheet by getting investment through Flipkart in the flying machine. Flipkart issued rights of almost 400 crores in the partnership. Flipkart has been partnering up with different brands now, like max.
COVID-19 has not only affected the retail business, last week only the U.S. brand Harley Davidson shut down its factory in India and preparing to leave the market.
