By
Bloomberg
Published
September 30, 2024
Ciel Ltd., a Mauritian-based conglomerate, plans to increase output at its textile factories in India by about a third to boost supply to brands including Hugo Boss, Lacoste and Superdry.
The company’s textile division in India has annual output of about 15 million shirts and is targeting 20 million pieces over the next three years, according to Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Dalais. That operation has seven factories employing about 10,000 people.
“We have already invested in our organic growth in textile,” Dalais said in an interview on Monday. The company’s strategy has been to lay hold of new business as manufacturing shifts to India from Bangladesh and China. Three quarters of its production there is exported to the US and the European Union, selling to Polo, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.
For the diversified company, textiles generated $345.8 million in sales representing about 45% of total revenue last year. After tax profit for that segment fell 26% to $17.6 million, according to earnings released on Monday.
“The cluster faced a challenging global retail market environment, resulting in softer demand and lower sales volumes, predominately impacting our regional operations,” the company said.
Ciel expects operations in Madagascar and eastern Africa to help deliver double-digit pretax profit growth this financial year. For the 12 months through June, more than half of its revenue came from international businesses, which helped boost pretax profit growth to 15% from a year earlier.
Ciel owns C-Care, the biggest private health operator in Mauritius, which has expanded into Uganda with a hospital and 22 clinics. As for financial services, the group is the biggest shareholder in BNI Madagascar, a lender with 112 branches. Prospects are now to expand non-banking financial services in the Indian Ocean island nation and the region, Dalais said.