News: Liberty Shoes, Pantaloon form joint venture

(BL 15/07/2006) Bangalore - In a venture that would give the partners a further foothold in the booming retail business, Liberty Shoes and Pantaloon have formed a joint venture called `FootMart' to launch a branded footwear retail chain.

FootMart opened its second `Shoe Factory' store in Bangalore on Friday after the first one made its debut in Ahmedabad.

FootMart would set up more outlets before the year-end in Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, which would have two stores each.

While one store each would be opened in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Agra, Lucknow and Chandigarh.

Liberty Shoes Ltd has a 49 per cent stake in the joint venture. Addressing a press conference here, Anupam Bansal, Director of FootMart Retail India Ltd, said initially Rs 30 crore would be invested in setting up Shoe Factory units.

The company plans to rollout 100 stores in five years.

Bansal said Shoe Factory would be located in shopping malls and also set up independent stores to market branded and unbranded footwear sourced from different suppliers, including Bata and Liberty.

Lifestyle Footwear

Liberty, which had a turnover of Rs 220 crore last year, has already expanded its production capacity by 25,000 pairs a day to 75,000 to meet the demand of Shoe Factory, said Bansal.

Stating that the Shoe Factory would redefine the price point in the organised shoe retailing, offering products for men, women and children, FootMart would be launching lifestyle footwear brand stores by the year end for the upmarket customers.