`50 and `60, with the highest price
tag touching `120, local brands sold
for about half the price. The company
earned `2.3 crore in 1995-96, and
sales weren’t growing very fast.
But the next decade was one
in which the purchasing power
and patterns of middle-class
India saw a dramatic shift.
Between 1996 and 2006,
India’s per capita gross domestic
product doubled from $396 to
$792, and urban Indians began to
flock to multi-brand retail outlets
(MBOs) such as Shoppers Stop and
Lifestyle. Consumers were willing
to spend more for global brands.
“Around 2004, we were able to
stock in MBOs. It was a turning
point, in the sense that since we
were in MBOs, the hosiery stores
started respecting us a little more.They realised this was not regular
innerwear that we were selling,”
says Vedji Ticku, a Page Industries
veteran since 1997 and the current
chief executive officer. “It wasn’t
very easy even then. It isn’t easy
even now. You need to reach a
threshold point where you are well
accepted as a brand. It was between
2004 and 2006 that things started
changing.” It was a decade after
starting out that Page Industries
crossed the `100-crore sales mark.
“Jockey has successfully created
a mid-to-premium segment in the
urban area, which was a virgin
space. This is unusual because for
any other category, this is the most
crowded segment, as far as a branded
play is concerned. As incremental
urban demand got created, Jockey
ended up occupying that space,”
says Ankur Bisen, associate vicepresident of retail and consumer
products at Technopak Advisors.
Buoyed by the spurt in revenues,
Page Industries floated a `100-crore
initial public offering (IPO) in- Back then, the company had
three manufacturing facilities and
a presence in 14,000 retail outlets
and 17 exclusive brand outlets.
Flush with funds, the company
embarked on an aggressive marketing
drive and spent the next few
years in increasing manufacturing
capacity—it now has a workforce
of 20,000 people, 15 manufacturing
units with one in Tiruppur and the
rest in Karnataka—and expanding
into smaller towns and cities.
Talking about the experience
he gained from the Philippines
business where he, along with
brothers Nari and Ramesh, continue
to be shareholders, and which was
renamed GTVL Manufacturing
Industries in 1987, Genomal says:
“The experience and expertise that
evolved over five decades in this
business [in the Philippines] has
given us our fundamental strengths,
both in the back end, where we
have mastered the manufacturing
processes by maximising operational
efficiencies while producing the
very best quality products, and
in the front end where we are
very strong in product design and
development, innovative marketing
and retail and distribution.”
And he hasn’t looked back
since the 2007 IPO. Annual sales
have grown by 21 times between
FY06 and FY17. Today, Page
Industries works with 900
distributors and has a presence
in more than 50,000 retail outletsand 370 exclusive outlets. It has
also expanded to Sri Lanka (1997),
Nepal (1998) and the UAE (2012).
“Page Industries has taken time,
and has gone through the struggle
of building a brand. But they stayed
on course and built the fundamentals
of the business, which are product
quality, distribution network and
brand building, without looking
for shortcuts,” says Hemchandra
Javeri, chief executive at Forum
Synergies (India) PE Fund
Managers. “It takes time to build
a brand that consumers like,
especially one with the scale and
size that they have today.”
Genomal—who made Bengaluru
his home in 1995 and lives there with
his wife and two sons—has been
at the forefront of the company’s
growth into the largest licensee for
Jockey, a brand that sells in at least
147 countries, and standing firm in
the face of stiff competition from
innerwear brands such as Hanes,
Fruit of the Loom, Tommy Hilfiger,
FCUK and Calvin Klein, as well as
apparel brands like Levi’s, US Polo
Association and Van Heusen which
launched innerwear. In 2012, the
company partnered with swimwear
brand Speedo, a `34.5-crore segment
until FY17, which is overseen by
Genomal’s elder son Shamir, 33,
the chief strategy officer at Page
Industries; younger son, Rohan, 25, is
part of the business excellence team.
“The MD is a visionary. He makes
investments at the right moment and
ahead of time. It takes 12 to 18 months
to create infrastructure. Once the
investments go in today, products
will come out in 18 months. At that
time, we should be ready to sell them.
He has the vision to understand
that. Today, we are already
planning till 2020,” says Ticku.
Today, at 64, Genomal runs Page
Industries with a fervent zeal.
“I tell my team, keep reaching for
the stars but keep your feet on the
ground. I truly believe the best of Page
Industries is yet to come,” he says.Page Industries has a
presence in over 50,000 retail
outlets and 370 exclusive stores
60 | forbes india december 29, 2017Richest
10 0 IndIans
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